The Impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution on Engineering Education: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2019) – Volume 1 9783030402747, 3030402746

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Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 1134

Michael E. Auer Hanno Hortsch Panarit Sethakul   Editors

The Impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution on Engineering Education Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2019) – Volume 1

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing Volume 1134

Series Editor Janusz Kacprzyk, Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Advisory Editors Nikhil R. Pal, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India Rafael Bello Perez, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Computing, Universidad Central de Las Villas, Santa Clara, Cuba Emilio S. Corchado, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain Hani Hagras, School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, UK László T. Kóczy, Department of Automation, Széchenyi István University, Gyor, Hungary Vladik Kreinovich, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, USA Chin-Teng Lin, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan Jie Lu, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia Patricia Melin, Graduate Program of Computer Science, Tijuana Institute of Technology, Tijuana, Mexico Nadia Nedjah, Department of Electronics Engineering, University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Ngoc Thanh Nguyen , Faculty of Computer Science and Management, Wrocław University of Technology, Wrocław, Poland Jun Wang, Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong

The series “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” contains publications on theory, applications, and design methods of Intelligent Systems and Intelligent Computing. Virtually all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information science, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce, environment, healthcare, life science are covered. The list of topics spans all the areas of modern intelligent systems and computing such as: computational intelligence, soft computing including neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary computing and the fusion of these paradigms, social intelligence, ambient intelligence, computational neuroscience, artificial life, virtual worlds and society, cognitive science and systems, Perception and Vision, DNA and immune based systems, self-organizing and adaptive systems, e-Learning and teaching, human-centered and human-centric computing, recommender systems, intelligent control, robotics and mechatronics including human-machine teaming, knowledge-based paradigms, learning paradigms, machine ethics, intelligent data analysis, knowledge management, intelligent agents, intelligent decision making and support, intelligent network security, trust management, interactive entertainment, Web intelligence and multimedia. The publications within “Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing” are primarily proceedings of important conferences, symposia and congresses. They cover significant recent developments in the field, both of a foundational and applicable character. An important characteristic feature of the series is the short publication time and world-wide distribution. This permits a rapid and broad dissemination of research results. ** Indexing: The books of this series are submitted to ISI Proceedings, EI-Compendex, DBLP, SCOPUS, Google Scholar and Springerlink **

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11156

Michael E. Auer Hanno Hortsch Panarit Sethakul •

•

Editors

The Impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution on Engineering Education Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2019) – Volume 1

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Editors Michael E. Auer Carinthia University of Applied Sciences Villach, Austria

Hanno Hortsch Technische Universität Dresden Dresden, Germany

Panarit Sethakul King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok Bangkok, Thailand

ISSN 2194-5357 ISSN 2194-5365 (electronic) Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ISBN 978-3-030-40273-0 ISBN 978-3-030-40274-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

ICL2019 was the 22nd edition of the International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning and the 48th edition of the IGIP International Conference on Engineering Pedagogy. This interdisciplinary conference aims to focus on the exchange of relevant trends and research results as well as the presentation of practical experiences in interactive collaborative learning and engineering pedagogy. ICL2019 has been organized by King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok from September 25 to 27, 2019, in Thailand. This year’s theme of the conference was “The Impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution on Engineering Education.” Again outstanding scientists from around the world accepted the invitation for keynote speeches: • Xavier Fouger, Senior Director, Learning Centers and Programs, Dassault Systemes – Learning Experience. Speech title: Learning Centers, a Tidal Wave in Shaping the Workforce of the Future • Doru Ursutiu, Manager of Center for Valorization and Transfer of Competence, “Transylavania” University of Brasov, Romania. Speech title: Affective Education and New Technologies starting from Music Therapy to Engineering Education! • Stefan Vorbach, Professor at Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria. Speech title: The Importance of Entrepreneurship Education for University Graduates • Aditad Vasinonta, Deputy-Director General, Office of Industrial Economics, Ministry of Industry, Thailand In addition, an invited speech has been given by • David Guralnick, Kaleidoscope Learning, USA. Speech title: Creative Approaches to Online Learning Design

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Furthermore, five very interesting workshops have been held: • Methodologies To Build Conceptual Questions For Assessing Important Misconceptions In Engineering-Related Areas • Getting Ready for IT Program Accreditation in Europe: the Euro-Inf Standard • Introduction to Modus Toolbox™ IDE Using PSoC® 6 MCUs • Authentic Learning Strategies to Develop Engineering Competencies for the Twenty-First Century • Employing Accreditation Requirements to Build Engineering Leadership Components in the Curriculum Since its beginning, this conference is devoted to new approaches in learning with a focus on collaborative learning and engineering education. We are currently witnessing a significant transformation in the development of education. There are at least three essential and challenging elements of this transformation process that have to be tackled in education: • The impact of globalization and digitalization on all areas of human life • The exponential acceleration of the developments in technology as well as of the global markets and the necessity of flexibility and agility in education • The new generation of students, who are always online and do not know to live without Internet Therefore, the following main themes have been discussed in detail: • • • • • • • • • • • •

Interactive and Collaborative Learning New Learning Models and Applications Research in Engineering Pedagogy E-Learning and Distance Learning Problem and Project-Based Learning Course and Curriculum Development Knowledge Management and Learning Real-World Learning Experiences Evaluation and Outcome Assessment Computer-Aided Language Learning Vocational Education Development Technical Teacher Training As submission types have been accepted:

• • • •

Full Paper, Short Paper Work in Progress, Poster Special Sessions Round Table Discussions, Workshops, Tutorials

All contributions were subjected to a double-blind review. The review process was very competitive. We had to review nearly 570 submissions. A team of about 275 reviewers did this terrific job. Our special thanks to all of them.

Preface

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Due to the time and conference schedule restrictions, we could finally accept only the best 166 submissions for presentation. Our conference had again more than 200 participants from 38 countries from all continents. ICL2020 will be held in Tallinn, Estonia. Michael E. Auer Panarit Sethakul Hanno Hortsch ICL General Chairs

Committees

General Chair Michael E. Auer

CTI Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Honorary Advisors Teravuti Boonyasopon Somrerk Chandra-Ambhon Hans J. Hoyer Viacheslav Prikhodko Suchart Siengchin Pairote Stirayakorn Saowanit Sukparungsee Krishna Vedula

KMUTNB, Thailand KMUTNB, Thailand George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA Moscow Technical University, Russia KMUTNB, Thailand KMUTNB, Thailand KMUTNB, Thailand University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA

ICL2019 Conference Chairs Hanno Hortsch (IGIP President) Panarit Sethakul

Dresden University of Technology, Germany KMUTNB, Thailand

International Chairs Samir A. El-Seoud Neelakshi Chandrasena Premawardhena Alexander Kist

The British University in Egypt, Africa University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka (Asia) University of Southern Queensland, Australia/Oceania

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Alaa Ashmawy David Guralnick

Committees

American University Dubai, Middle East Kaleidoscope Learning, New York, USA (North America)

Technical Program Chairs Bandit Suksawat Wattana Kaewmanee Sebastian Schreiter

KMUTNB, Thailand KMUTNB, Thailand IAOE, France

Workshop and Tutorial Chair Barbara Kerr

Ottawa University, Canada

Special Session Chair Andreas Pester

Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria

Publication Chairs Somkid Saelee Sebastian Schreiter

KMUTNB, Thailand IAOE, France

Publicity Chairs Wittawat Tipsuwan Panita Wannapiroon Nattakan Utakrit

KMUTNB, Thailand KMUTNB, Thailand KMUTNB, Thailand

Awards Chairs Prachayanun Nilsuk Teresa Restivo

KMUTNB, Thailand University of Porto, Portugal

Local Arrangement Chairs Charun Sanrach Pichet Sriyanyong

KMUTNB, Thailand KMUTNB, Thailand

Exhibition Chair Titipong Lertwiriyaprapa

KMUTNB, Thailand

Committees

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Conference Treasurer Somsak Akatimagool

KMUTNB, Thailand

Secretary Suchanya Posayanant

KMUTNB, Thailand

Senior Program Committee Members Samir Abou El-Seoud George Ioannidis Eleonore Lickl Andreas Pester Tatiana Polyakova Doru Ursutiu Axel Zafoschnig

The British University in Egypt University of Patras, Greece College for Chemical Industry, Vienna, Austria Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Russia Transylvania University of Brasov, Romania Ministry of Education, Austria

Program Committee Members Alexander Soloviev Christian Guetl Christos Bouras Cornel Samoila Demetrios Sampson Despo Ktoridou Hants Kipper Herwig Rehatschek Igor Verner Imre Rudas Istvan Simonics Ivana Simonova Jürgen Mottok Martin Bilek Matthias Utesch Monica Divitini Nael Barakat

MADI, Moscow, Russia Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria University of Patras, Patras, Greece Transylvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria Technion, Haifa, Israel Obuda University, Budapest, Hungary Obuda University, Budapest, Hungary University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic OTH Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany NTNU, Gløshaugen, Norway The University of Texas at Tyler (UT Tyler), TX, USA

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Pavel Andres Rauno Pirinen Santi Caballé Teresa Restivo Tiia Rüütmann Sarmad Ahmed Shaikh

Committees

Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Vantaa, Finland Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain Universidade de Porto, Porto, Portugal Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology, Pakistan

Contents

Interactive and Collaborative Learning Successful Embedding of Virtual Lectures in Medical Psychology Education in Order to Improve Teacher-Student Interactivity and Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herwig Rehatschek, Franziska Matzer, Christian Vajda, and Christian Fazekas

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Increasing College Student Engagement with Digital Media and a Dedicated Space: An Exploratory Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Delia Perez-Lozano and Luis Rocha-Lona

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Modeling the Behaviors of Participants in Meetings for Decision Making Using OpenPose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eiji Watanabe, Takashi Ozeki, and Takeshi Kohama

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Distance Interactive Collaborative Training for Future Teachers . . . . . Venera Viktorovna Korobkova, Larisa Alexandrovna Kosolapova, Margarita Alexandrovna Mosina, Anna Illarionovna Sannikova, and Natalya Vladimirovna Tarinova Analysis of Student Members’ Attitudes on Out-of-Curriculum Science Communication Activities and Resultant Educational Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Makoto Hasegawa Mobile Apps (EnglishListening and 6 Minutes English) and the Listening Skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Valeria Mendoza, Ana Vera-de la Torre, and Cristina Páez-Quinde Infret: Enhancing a Tool for Explorative Learning of Information Retrieval Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aleksandar Bobić, Christopher Cheong, Justin Filippou, France Cheong, and Christian Guetl

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Mobile Learning of Mathematics Games to Enhance Problem-Solving Skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pallop Piriyasurawong and Supparang Ruangvanich

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Combining the Imagineering Process and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model to Create Collaborative Art Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . Wannaporn Chujitarom and Pallop Piriyasurawong

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Designing Online Learning Activities for Collaborative Learning Among Engineering Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Anuradha Peramunugamage, H. Uditha W. Ratnayake, Shironica P. Karunanayaka, and Rangika U. Halwatura Work-in-Progress: Reducing Social Loafing in Information Technology Undergraduate Group Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 S. M. Uthpala Prasadini Samarakoon and Asanthika Imbulpitiya Poster: Development of Communication Skills for Future Engineers . . . 119 Guzel Rafaelevna Khusainova, Adelina Erkinovna Astafeva, Liliya Rustemovna Gazizulina, Gulnaz Fakhretdinova, and Julia Yurievna Yakimova A Method to Balance Educational Game Content and Lesson Duration: The Case of a Digital Simulation Game for Nurse Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Catherine Pons Lelardeux, Michel Galaup, Herve Pingaud, Catherine Mercadier, and Pierre Lagarrigue Poster: Multilingualism as a Means of Students’ Technocommunicational Competence Forming at Engineering University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Ekaterina Tsareva, Roza Bogoudinova, Leisan Khafisova, and Gulnaz Fakhretdinova Extracurricular Activities in Engineering College and Its Impact on Students’ Tolerance Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Gulnaz Fakhretdinova, Liudmila Dulalaeva, and Ekaterina Tsareva Video Games and Their Correlation to Empathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Ossy Dwi Endah Wulansari, Johanna Pirker, Johannes Kopf, and Christian Guetl Proposal of an Interactive IPTV Platform to Improve the Quality of Service of E-learning Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Ulrich Hermann Sèmèvo Boko, Bessan Melckior Dégboé, Samuel Ouya, and Gervais Mendy

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Impact of Zeroconf Protocol on Distance Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Massamba Seck, Baboucar Diatta, Samuel Ouya, Gervais Mendy, and Bessan Degboe Contribution to Improvement of Distance Learning Based on Zeroconf Protocol and an Interactive IPTV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Massamba Seck, Baboucar Diatta, Samuel Ouya, Gervais Mendy, and Kokou Gaglou Virtual and Augmented Reality in Science Teaching and Learning . . . . 193 Charilaos Tsichouridis, Marianthi Batsila, Dennis Vavougios, and George Ioannidis Proposal of the Objective Function of Trust for the Dynamic Delegation and Automatic Revocation of Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Jeanne Roux Ngo Bilong, Adam Ismael Paco Sie, Gervais Mendy, Cheikhane Seyed, Samuel Ouya, Papa Samour Diop, and Djiby Sow Using Active Learning Integrated with Pedagogical Aspects to Enhance Student’s Learning Experience in Programming and Related Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Asanthika Imbulpitiya, Nuwan Kodagoda, Anjalie Gamage, and Kushnara Suriyawansa Collaboratively Learning and Developing a Tool Kit for GPS Anti-jamming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Syed Masaab Ahmed, Muhammad Zain Ul Abiden, Muhammad Minhaj Arshad, and Sarmad Ahmed Shaikh Engineering Slam as a Project of Popularizing Sciences and Engineering Competencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Zulfiya Kadeeva, Alla A. Kaybiyaynen, Olga Lisina, and Elena Turner Accessible Portal for School-Age Blind, as a Tool to Improve Social Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Betty Armijo-Moreta, Javier Sánchez-Guerrero, Víctor Hugo Guachimbosa, and Willyams Castro-Davila Transnational Learning, Teaching, Training Activities for B-CAPP Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Rafik Absi, Ikram El Abbassi, Moumen Darcherif, Bisera Karanovic, Gordana Nikolic, Anna Stamouli, Fabian Gomez, and Mattheos Kakaris Active Learning - Competency Development Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Olga Yurievna Khatsrinova, Olga Seliverstova, Julia Khatsrinova, Ekaterina Tarasova, and Svetlana Barabanova

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Applying Collaborative Methodological Solutions Around Students in Higher Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 György Molnár and Katalin Nagy The Development of C&A Technique for Learning Management to Enhance Instructional Media Creation Skills in a Cloud-Based Learning Environment for Undergraduate Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 Kanitta Hinon New Learning Models and Applications Method of Thematic Immersion in the Information Educational Environment as a Tool for the Formation and Assessment of Professional Competence of Future Engineering Teachers . . . . . . . . . 301 Tetiana Bondarenko, Denys Kovalenko, Nataliia Briukhanova, and Vasyl Iagupov Education of IoT-Engineering in Austrian Vocational Secondary Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Andreas Probst, Manfred Grafinger, Gabriele Schachinger, and Reinhard Bernsteiner Mobile Applications and Their Influence in the Cognitive Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Cristina Páez-Quinde, Víctor Hernández-Toro, Santiago Velasteguí-Hernández, and Xavier Sulca-Guale M-learning as Support Tool in the Diffusion of the Traditional Food: Case Study Ambato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Cristina Páez-Quinde, Francisco Torres-Oñate, Maria-Fernanda Viteri, and María-Emilia Porras Backward Design with Virtual Learning Ecosystem Model to Enhance Design Thinking and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Chananchida Chunpungsuk, Pallop Piriyasurawong, and Pinanta Chatwattana Educational and Career Guidance Cloud-Based System to Improve Learning Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 Hosam Farouk El-Sofany and Samir A. El-Seoud The Development of an Artificial Intelligence Assistant for Participatory Design in the Engineering Design Educational Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358 Yu-Hung Chien, Hsien-Sheng Hsiao, Yu-Shan Chang, and Chun-Kai Yao

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Engineering Education: Elite Training at a Technological University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 Olga Yurievna Khatsrinova, Ekaterina Nikolaevna Tarasova, Lyubov’ Vasilievna Ovsienko, Sergey Vladimirovich Yushko, and Mansur Floridovich Galikhanov Poster: Development of Faculty Competences in Online Teaching . . . . . 376 Gulnara Fatykhovna Khasanova and Mansur Floridovich Galikhanov Student Relationship Management Using Business Intelligence Model to Enhance Student’s Leadership in 21st Century . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Chanin Tungpantong and Pallop Piriyasurawong WebQuests: From an Inquiry-Oriented Instruction to the Connectivist Approach to Science Teaching for the 21st Century Learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 Charilaos Tsichouridis, Marianthi Batsila, Dennis Vavougios, and Anastasios Tsihouridis Management of Learning and Teaching Activities in Promoting Practical Skills for Industrial Electronic Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406 Kanokwan Ruangsiri and Somsak Akatimagool Analysis Dropout Situation of Business Computer Students at University of Phayao . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Pratya Nuankaew, Wongpanya Nuankaew, Kanakarn Phanniphong, Rerkchai Fooprateepsiri, and Sittichai Bussaman Inventive for Teaching Braille Writing Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433 Yupin Suppakhun and Peerasak Serikul Innovative Technical Drawing Simulation Application for Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Teaching and Learning of Technical Graphic Communication for Upper Secondary School . . . . 446 Mohd Amir Abdul Latip, Shaharuddin Md Salleh, and Aminah Binti Idrus A Development of Instructional Model Based on Work-Integrated Learning for New Generation of Graduates: Case Study of Fujikura Electronics (Thailand) Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456 Kitchar Chaithanu, Pinit Nuangpirom, and Kanokwan Ruangsiri A Unified Concept of Element-Joint Model for Applied Mathematics with Structural Mechanic Engineering Education . . . . . . . 469 Sacharuck Pornpeerakeat and Pasin Plodpradit Conceptual Framework on League Learning Management . . . . . . . . . . 480 Anutchai Chutipascharoen and Soradech Krootjohn

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Methodology for the Production of Learning Objects Enriched with Augmented Reality by University Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492 Wilma Lorena Gavilanes López, Blanca Rocio Cuji, Javier Vinicio Salazar Mera, and Maria José Abásolo The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method for Statically Indeterminate Structural Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . 503 Sacharuck Pornpeerakeat and Arisara Chaikittiratana Student Engagement Through Community Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516 Teresa L. Larkin Time Analysis of Teaching and Learning Method Based on LOVE Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528 Athakorn Kengpol, Nitidetch Koohathongsumrit, and Warapoj Meethom Research in Engineering Pedagogy Correlation Between Systems Thinking and Abstract Thinking Among High School Students Majoring in Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541 Aharon Gero, Aziz Shekh-Abed, and Orit Hazzan Measuring Students’ Device Specific Competencies Using an Eye-Tracking Study on Oscilloscopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549 Mesut Alptekin and Katrin Temmen Using Active Learning Methods Within the Andragogical Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566 Svetlana V. Barabanova, Nataliya V. Nikonova, Irina V. Pavlova, Rozalina V. Shagieva, and Maria S. Suntsova Project Interdisciplinarity in Legal Students Education of Technological University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578 Svetlana V. Barabanova, Natalia V. Kraysman, Timofey G. Makarov, Larisa G. Schurikova, and Fyodor G. Myshko The Needs-Oriented Approach of the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589 Diego Gormaz-Lobos, Claudia Galarce-Miranda, Hanno Hortsch, and Steffen Kersten Cybertraining: Activities and Time Scheduling. A Case Study . . . . . . . . 601 Dorin Isoc and Teodora Surubaru Psychological and Pedagogical Problems of Beginning Lecturers and Postgraduate Students at Engineering University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614 Elena B. Gulk, Tatyana A. Baranova, Victor N. Kruglirov, Anastasia V. Tabolina, and Pavel Kozlovskii

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Adaptation of Professional Engineering Training to the Challenges of Modern Digital Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623 Ludmila V. Juravleva, Vadim A. Shakhnov, and Andrey I. Vlasov A Development of Cognitive Tools to Enhance Problem – Solving in Basic Microcontroller Learning for Electrical Engineering Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634 Kitti Surpare and Kanokwan Klinieam Poster: Intensive Learning Technologies as a Trend in Education Digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644 Anna V. Aksyanova, Svetlana V. Barabanova, Natalia V. Kraysman, Vladimir V. Nasonkin, and Nataliya V. Nikonova Development of the Engineering University Students’ Ecological Competence Based on the Project Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650 Petr N. Osipov, Alisher I. Irismetov, Elena Klemyashova, and Leisan Khafisova International Network Conference as an Efficient Way to Integrate Universities and Businesses in the Context of Digital Economy . . . . . . . 663 Sergey V. Yushko, Mansur F. Galikhanov, Svetlana V. Barabanova, Alla A. Kaybiyaynen, and Maria S. Suntsova Development of Research-Based RRSDI Learning Model for Telecommunication Engineering Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 Nattapong Intarawiset, Sivadol Noulnoppadol, Rattapon Jeenawong, and Somsak Akatimagool A Development of Instructional Package Using Problem-Based Learning for Power System Transients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684 Phanuphon Siriwithtayathanakun and Pichet Sriyanpong A Study on Pupils’ Motivation to Pursue a STEM Career . . . . . . . . . . . 696 Georg Jäggle, Munir Merdan, Gottfried Koppensteiner, Wilfried Lepuschitz, Alexandra Posekany, and Markus Vincze The Impact of Alternative Assessments in Assessing the Seventh Component of the Washington Accord’s Knowledge Profile . . . . . . . . . 707 Peck Loo Kiew, Chia Pao Liew, Marlia Puteh, and Kim Geok Tan Engineering Education over the Course of Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719 Oliver Michler, Paul Schwarzbach, and Robert Richter Flipped Classroom and Serious Games as a New Learning Model in Experimental Sciences at the University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731 Lynda Ouchaouka, Kamal Omari, Mohammed Talbi, Mohamed Moussetad, Najat El Amrani, and Lahoucine Labriji

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Poster: Development and Implementation of Electronic Applications Based on Arduino Platform for a First Basic Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740 Francisco David Trujillo-Aguilera, Elidia Beatriz Blázquez-Parra, Antonio Palomares Vigil, and Teresa Marín Bao Problem and Project Based Learning Poster: Design of PBL Educational Program in Collaboration with Printing Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749 Akiyuki Minamide and Kazuya Takemata Poster: Design of an Educational Program for Freshmen Before Practicing Project Based Learning: Utilization of Digital Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755 Kazuya Takemata and Akiyuki Minamide Challenge Based Learning in the 4IR: Results on the Application of the Tec21 Educational Model in an Energetic Efficiency Improvement to a Rustic Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760 Juan Manuel Reyna-González, Alicia Ramírez-Medrano, and Jorge Membrillo-Hernández Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in Engineering Education in Sri Lanka: A Moodle Based Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770 Anuradha Peramunugamage, Hakim A. Usoof, W. Priyan S. Dias, and Rangika U. Halwatura Expanding STEM to the Suggestion of STE-SAL-M; A Cross-curricular Approach to Primary Education Science Teaching and Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781 Charilaos Tsichouridis, Marianthi Batsila, and Dennis Vavougios Poster: Creative, Mental, and Innovation Competences Formation n Engineering Education: Systemic Pattern of Labor Productivity Increase in Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793 Lev V. Redin and Mansur F. Galikhanov Project Activities in Technical Institutes as a Mean of Preparing Students for Life and Professional Self-determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800 Anastasia V. Tabolina, Marina V. Olennikova, Dmitrii V. Tikhonov, Pavel Kozlovskii, Tatyana A. Baranova, and Elena B. Gulk Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory Mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 808 Wanwisa Wattanasin, Pallop Piriyasurawong, and Pinanta Chatwattana

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The Method of Formation of the Students of the Engineering University Competence to Innovative Professional Activity . . . . . . . . . . 818 Olga Yurievna Khatsrinova, Mansur Floridovich Galikhanov, and Julia Khatsrinova A Project-Centric Learning Strategy in Biotechnology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830 Seshasai Srinivasan, Amin Reza Rajabzadeh, and Dan Centea A Problem Solving Based Approach to Learn Engineering Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839 Nasim Muhammad and Seshasai Srinivasan Poster: The Usage of Open Educational Resources and Practices in Training Engineers for the IT Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849 Gulnara Fatykhovna Khasanova and Renat Nazipovich Zaripov Work-in-Progress: Industry 4.0 Production Line for Educational Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 855 Robert Hauß, Gabriele Schachinger, and Gerald Kalteis Teaching Based on Challenges: Academic Impact in the Industrial Networks Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 861 Virgilio Vásquez López, Luis Mauro Ortega Gonzalez, and Agustin Vázquez Sánchez The Use of the Project-Based Learning in the Study of the Course of Mathematical Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871 Svetlana Vladimirovna Rozhkova, Irina Georgievna Ustinova, Olga Vitalievich Yanuschik, and Igor Vladimirovna Korytov A Systematic Approach to Implementing Complex Problem Solving in Engineering Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 880 Chia Pao Liew, Siti Hawa Hamzah, Marlia Puteh, Shahrin Mohammad, and Wan Hamidon Wan Badaruzzaman Improvement of Pre-service Teachers’ Professional Competencies Using DAPOA Project-Based Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892 Pichit Uantrai and Somsak Akatimagool Chat-Interviews as a Means to Explore Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions on Developing Video Games with Unity in Computer Science Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 903 Oswald Comber, Renate Motschnig, and Hubert Mayer Interventions to Enhance Multinational Collaborative Projects as a Project-Based Learning Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 915 Ivan Enrique Esparragoza, Jorge Rodriguez, and Maria J. Evans

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Engineering Education Through the Eyes of a Young Specialist: Information for Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 924 Olga Yurievna Khatsrinova, Alexander Troitsky, Julia Khatsrinova, and Weronika Bronskaya Learning Modules for Visual-Based Position Tracking and Path Controlling of Autonomous Robots Using Pure Pursuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934 Supod Kaewkorn ‘Learning by Competing’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 946 Shashikant Annarao Halkude and Dipali Dilip Awasekar Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 957

Interactive and Collaborative Learning

Successful Embedding of Virtual Lectures in Medical Psychology Education in Order to Improve Teacher-Student Interactivity and Collaboration Herwig Rehatschek1(&), Franziska Matzer2, Christian Vajda2, and Christian Fazekas2 1

Executive Department for Teaching with Media, Medical University Graz, Auenbruggerplatz 2, 8036 Graz, Austria [email protected] 2 Department of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Medical University Graz, Auenbruggerplatz 2, 8036 Graz, Austria {Franziska.Matzer,Christian.Vajda, Christian.Fazekas}@medunigraz.at

Abstract. Teaching medical psychology requires both, a good knowledge of theory but also a lot of practical hands on experience in order to successfully deploy the learned skills to patients. However, the time for classroom lessons is limited, so we had to think about a didactical concept which provides both: on the one hand an efficient and for the students attractive way to transfer the theory and on the other hand more time in the classroom lectures in order to practice skills and improve interactivity and collaboration among students and teachers. Having in mind that we had to provide more room for practical lessons in small groups and to transfer theoretical knowledge and refresher content in a most efficient way, the concept of flipped classroom in combination with blended learning were the most obvious choices. In order to apply the concept of a flipped classroom we performed a series of workshops with the involved teachers and developed with them four different virtual formats in order to make the delivery of the theoretical and refresher content as attractive, effective and interesting as possible. Technically we utilized our lecture recording system in combination with editing and a professional play out for the students. We also performed an accompanying student evaluation in order to get some feedback on the effectiveness of our approach. Last but not least we will share all our experiences gained in this project, which can easily be applied also to other subjects of teaching.

1 Introduction In Austria the field of medical psychology is primarily embedded in the clinical section of medical studies as it contains learning objectives for psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy [1]. Teaching medical psychology thus requires repeated communication training as well as good knowledge and understanding of biopsychosocial medicine, from the development to treatment of psychosomatic and somatopsychic © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 3–15, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_1

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disorders. At the Medical University of Graz, the latter topic is included in the study module “human psyche”, which students attend during their 5th year of study. Teaching this topic requires both, a good knowledge of theory but also the possibility to discuss and deepen this knowledge in classroom lectures; only by that way good understanding and practical applicability of this complex subject matter can be obtained. Since this is a common challenge in teaching, especially in clinical as well as in technical subjects, we put a special emphasis on developing a flexible didactic approach that can also be applied to other subjects. The traditional way of teaching the module “human psyche” at our university involved a mixture of frontal classroom lectures, seminars and tutorials. Frontal lectures provided the fundamental theory within a large group of students; these lessons also involved some refresher content referring to knowledge learned in former semesters. The seminars and tutorials were held in small groups and fostered student teacher collaboration and consolidation of the learned content. The re-design of the module was based on two main issues: First, frontal lectures had some disadvantages, as not all students had the same level of knowledge. However, in a frontal lesson with the entire students group all will have to listen to the same content, either they need it or not. The same is even more true for the refreshed content. Second, the high number of seminars and tutorials resulted in a high teaching load for this module. Since currently only a small teaching staff is available, we had to think about a didactical concept which on the one hand enables students to learn the theory and refresher content in an attractive and individual way, and, on the other hand, also offers enough time for classroom lectures in small groups in order to improve interactivity and collaboration amongst students and teachers.

2 Related Work Since we have a very specific, modular curriculum, we did not find any related work concerning the didactic approach. We started from content and experiences gained from previous teaching medical psychology to students and built up the new module in a complete new and individual way, following a blended learning/flipped classroom concept. Concerning the technical implementation many providers offer hardware components and software for lecture recording systems including Extron, Panopto, Presentations2Go, Epiphan and StreamAMG. But none of these systems are out of the box solutions. They all require comprehensive technical planning in order to guarantee an optimal adaption to the individual needs. The Extron [6] hardware was at the time we started the technical specification (2016) for the hardware not capable of recording two full HD streams in parallel nor could they provide a native software solution in order to store and manage the recorded material. With begin of 2018 Extron provided a fully integrated solution by adding EMP Entwine to their product portfolio. Entwine was a commercial branch of OpenCast Matterhorn [11] and provides nearly the same functionality than the open source software with full technical support. However, EMP entwine was deceased by January 2019 by Extron. The software is not anymore offered nor supported, all customers were decoupled. OpenCast Matterhorn remains the only

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open source software in the sector of lecture recording and video management. The installation and configuration of the software requires expert personnel. StreamAMG [7] with its product Stream LC offer a software solution for recording and managing self-recorded videos in connection with slides and a streaming portal solution. Panopto [8] and Presentations2Go [14] also offer a software solution for recording, managing and distributing video content, both as locally installed solution or as a cloud service. Both do not natively offer recording hardware for lecture rooms but provide only certified partners. Kaltura 13 offers also a video managing and distribution platform, however, only as a cloud service. Epiphan [10] provides hardware for live video production and streaming, but no software for management, organisation and broadcast of the recorded material.

3 Didactic Realization Having in mind that we had to provide enough room for practical lessons in small groups and to transfer theoretical knowledge and refresher content in a most efficient way, the concept of flipped classroom in combination with blended learning are the most obvious choices. However, the concept of flipped classroom is a very generic one and needs a lot of work in order to apply it to individual requirements. So we decided to perform a series of workshops with the involved teachers in order to decide on the concrete implementation. As a general idea we started in the first workshop to offer part of the theory lessons and refresher courses as virtual offline courses which can be accessed by students at home. These courses were in combination with online tests for self-reflection utilizing our fully automatic virtual lesson system [3], so that students could test their gained knowledge. At the same time enough classroom lessons in small groups could be offered, where the theoretical content from the lessons will be deepened and related to praxis. In this paper we will focus on the implementation of the virtual parts. In two further workshops we developed different virtual formats in order to make the delivery of the theoretical and refresher content as attractive, effective and interesting as possible. We finally implemented four different formats, which are described in more detail in the next sections. 3.1

Format 1: Slides and One Speaker, Two Videos

In the first format we used two independent video streams. In stream one the teacher is visualized, in the second stream the slides as given in Fig. 1. The player allows for different displays such as: enlarge the speaker and make the slides smaller, or vice versa, or display only the slides or the speaker and a picture in picture variant. This is a quite often used standard format used with lecture recording.

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Fig. 1. Format #1 with one speaker and slides, two video streams

3.2

Format 2: Slides and Two Speakers, Two Videos

For the refresher part we used a new format with two speakers and the slides – as given in Fig. 2 - with again two video streams as described in the section before. The two speakers divide the content and present it together, each one focuses on his main expertise. So the students will get a maximum of knowledge transfer on the one hand, on the other hand the two speakers make the video more interesting to listen to and less linear.

Fig. 2. Format #2 with two speakers and slides, two videos

3.3

Format 3: Slides and One Speaker, Small Video Chunks

One of the teachers decided to partition his content in small chunks with a duration of about 10 min. as The presentation format was the same described in Sect. 3.1, two videos with speaker and slides. The idea behind this format was that student’s perceptive assets are higher when small videos with isolated content are presented in comparison two 45 min lectures. These so called video chunks can also be easily consumed in short breaks or during bus rides to or from the campus.

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7

Format 4: Animated Cartoon

The last format used for this module was an animated cartoon. This was produced by the teacher using a simulation patient, and power point. First a story board was set up, second the pictures where produced. Finally, the text, bubbles and animations were added. Last but not least we recorded the teacher voice synchronously to the slides. The result is visualized in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Format #4 animated cartoon

4 Technical Implementation Technically we utilized our lecture recording system in combination with manual editing and a professional play out for the students. The first chosen EMP Entwine solution from Extron was stable in terms of availability and accompanied with professional support. However, in January 2019 we surprisingly received a message from Extron that the video management platform EMP entwine will be deceased with effect of 1 January 2019. All further development and support will be stopped, customers will be decoupled. We immediately started with the search for alternatives. As a starting point and based on our experiences from the past we decided to investigate the following alternative solutions: Kaltura [12], Panopto [13], Presentations2Go [14], OpenCast setup with professional support [15] and a combined in house development in combination with an externally programmed portal solution. 4.1

Technical Solution

The Kaltura solution was not further investigated due to they do not provide an on site installation but only a cloud solution. For us it was a clear goal to have all videos stored at our side. The solution of Panopto was professional, however, their solution is for institutions which start from the scratch. We already had a functioning capturing solution and needed only the part of playout. So we would have bought a lot of functionality which is not needed. Finally, since Panopto is a pure Windows solution, also the integration with our CEPH [16] storage did not work without having high performance losses. The same was true for Presentations2Go, which also is a pure Windows solution. The indoor development in combination with an external company

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developing the portal solution was finally not chosen due to lack of programming personnel, dependency on a single person and lack of further development. We finally chose the OpenCast solution in combination with a professional set up by a company having high expertise in this area, elan eV [15]. This decision was taken in late March 2019, by begin of May – and during the writing of the full paper - the set up of the new solution was started, which is expected to be finalized by end of July. In this paper we will describe the existing solution of EMP Entwine, which is a commercial branch of OpenCast, and hence very similar. 4.2

Technical Workflow

In Fig. 4 the by us defined technical workflow is presented.

Fig. 4. Technical workflow

The first step is a pre-processing which contains the scheduling of the recordings. Since we have a central planning of the curriculum at our university we ask teachers to provide recording wishes in advance. The lessons are then scheduled in the appropriate rooms equipped with the recording hardware. We decided to equip our lecture rooms with Epiphan [10] hardware, which met our technical requirements. All in all, we equipped five big lecture rooms, the aula, three seminar rooms and our clinical skills simulation center with recording hardware and with a camera. The recording interface can be easily controlled via a Crestron panel directly placed in the lecture rooms. The camera films the white board and the teacher, next to this the PC/Beamer output can be recorded. Both streams are recorded in full HD resolution. Furthermore, we provide the teachers with four recording pre-settings. The first setting records PC/Beamer and the teacher’s lectern, the second setting records PC/Beamer and the teacher’s lectern and the whiteboard, the third setting records PC/Beamer and the whiteboard and the fourth setting records whiteboard and teacher’s lectern but not the PC/Beamer. These easy to understand recording scenarios together with the record, stop and pause button is the entire interface for the teachers in order to fully automatically record their lessons. 4.3

Data Transcoding, Post Processing and Quality Check

After recording is done the data is automatically transmitted as a MPEG-2 transport stream containing both video streams synchronized to a storage. Here we programmed an interface which allows us to manage and control the recordings. The interface – see Fig. 5-

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supports the following functionality: notification per E-mail when new recordings are available, download of the streams separately as a ZIP file or side-by-side, adding of metadata, remote control of the recording devices and archiving functionality. Following the defined workflow, we use this interface for downloading the recorder material for the post-processing step. Furthermore, this interface will manage the archiving of the recorded master material (before post processing), meaning we will permanently store the originally recorded material, the post processed material (within OpenCast server) and the post-processing video editing file.

Fig. 5. Data acquisition interface/remote recorder control

In the post production step we edit the recorded material. Due to the moderate number of recordings this step is currently done manually. We use Adobe Premiere in order to add a short introduction containing name of the module, title of the lesson and name of the teacher. Furthermore, we cut out sequences of bad quality, enhance the audio level and sometimes add text bubbles when students ask questions without using microphones. Then we publish the material on the video portal where first only the teachers have access. The teacher performs a quality control of the ready to publish material. All wishes of the teacher will be taken into consideration until he gives his ok for publishing. Then the video is finally published on our University LMS and in the portal to be accessed by the students. 4.4

Playout

The challenge for the playout software was to provide a user interface capable of playing two HD streams synchronically and to give students the flexibility for scaling the size of the two streams. So in case the teacher shows something interesting on the whiteboard the video with the teacher can be maximized and in case the information is on the slides this video stream can be enlarged. Furthermore, the player should work in all standard web browsers without having to install any plugins and shall work independently of the underlying operating system. Having all these requirements in mind we chose EMP Entwine from Extron, which is a commercial branch of the open source software OpenCast Matterhorn. We decided to offer two main possibilities to access the recorded lectures: (1) access via our LMS Moodle in order to access specific videos of

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specific courses, (2) access via a video portal where you have all recorded lectures in place ordered by courses and with search functionality. As depicted in Fig. 6 EMP Entwine supports with its player the synchronous visualization of two independent video streams. Students may choose between different layouts. The player supports also a slowdown and speed up functionality in case the teacher speaks to fast or too slowly. Last but not least a simple slide segmentation is offered as well. This player is offered in an embedded version via our LMS Moodle utilizing the standardized LTI (learning tools interoperability) interface [18].

Fig. 6. Playout interface for students

In Fig. 7 the interface of our video portal solution VITAL [9] is depicted. The portal allows access to all our recorded lectures (170 by May 2019). In connection with access rights we defined two groups, students and affiliates, which are assigned to the uploaded. Besides this of course access can be granted also to individuals or for the general public in case of open educational resources. The portal offers a hierarchical ordering by courses and provides a powerful search.

Fig. 7. VITAL – Video Portal of the Medical University of Graz

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5 Evaluation Results The medical psychology module was/will be held 6 times in this study year, starting in October 2018 and ending in July 2019. In order to receive feedback on our new didactic approach and the technical realization we initiated an online survey amongst the students. For this paper we could consider the first 5 times the module was held with a total of 218 participating students. We received 29 feedbacks, which results in a return rate of 13.3%. Our online survey contained 12 closed and one open question, in the following sections we will present the most important outcomes. In question 1 we wanted to know if students can, after working through the virtual parts, imagine integrating the gained knowledge into practical work with patients, in diagnosis and therapy. As given in Fig. 8 90% of the students agreed – 35% even with a strong agreement - , and only 10% had a weak disagreement.

10% 0% 0% 35%

24%

strong agreement very true true meets less hardly applies to not at all

31% Fig. 8. Q1 - After working through the virtual parts I can imagine to integrate the gained knowledge into practical work with patients, in diagnosis and therapy.

In question 2 we checked, whether the virtual parts where understandable by the students. As depicted in Fig. 9 97% agreed, and 59% even with a strong agreement. Only 3% had a weak disagreement.

7%

3%

0% 0%

strong agreement very true

31%

true

59%

meets less hardly applies to not at all

Fig. 9. Q2 - The virtual parts where clearly understandable for me.

In question 3 we wanted to know if the content of the recorded parts supports the learning success of the students for this module. As visualized in Fig. 10 again 90% agreed.

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7%

3% 0%

strong agreement very true

28%

21%

true meets less

41%

hardly applies to not at all

Fig. 10. Q3 - The content of the recorded parts supports my learning success for this module

7% 7%

35%

10% 10%

strong agreement very true true meets less hardly applies to not at all

31% Fig. 11. Q4 – I liked the video chunk format.

In question 4 we wanted to know if the students liked the video chunk format (see Sect. 3.3/format #3). As given in Fig. 11 76% liked the format, however, also 24% did not like it that much. In the open question this was further explained by means of one long lesson containing everything is better than many small pieces. This is because you can easier organize your content and even in a long video you can easily skip parts by positioning the video to the parts you are interested in. In question 5 we asked if the virtual parts of this course are well prepared in the sense of media didactics. As visualized in Fig. 12 90% agreed, that the virtual parts where well prepared with regards to media didactic.

7%

3%

0% 24%

21%

strong agreement very true true meets less hardly applies to not at all

45% Fig. 12. Q5 - The virtual parts of this course are well prepared in the sense of media didactics.

In question 6 we checked whether the balance between classroom lectures and virtual lectures is optimal for the students. As visualized in Fig. 13 83% of the students agreed, that the blended learning format was well implemented.

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In question 7 we wanted to know if the recorded lessons help students for a better preparation for the exam. As given in Fig. 14 72% of the students agreed, that recorded lectures help for better preparation for the exam.

17% 0% 0% 38% 24%

strong agreement very true true meets less hardly applies to

21% Fig. 13. Q6 - The currently implemented blended learning format is optimal in sense of virtual/classroom times.

Last but not least we wanted to know in question 8 on which end devices the students watched the virtual parts. As visualized in Fig. 15 the vast amount of students (83%) watched it on their laptops, 7% used desktop PCs and 10% used tablets (iOS, Android) and smartphones.

7% 21% 21%

0%

27%

24%

strong agreement very true true meets less hardly applies to not at all

Fig. 14. Q7 - Recorded lessons enable me for a better preparation for the exam.

4%

3%

3%

7%

83%

desktop PC Laptop Tablet (Android) iPad Smart Phone

Fig. 15. Q8 – On which end devices did you watch the recorded lessons?

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6 Summary and Conclusions Technically we can conclude, that the chosen EMP Entwine playout solution was stable in terms of availability and accompanied with professional support. Since this software was surprisingly deceased by January 2019 we decided to go for a playout solution based on open source software OpenCast and a portal provided by Elan V, a non profit company offering professional opencast set up service. The portal solution – open lecture [17] - is also open source and currently implemented at the University of Halle in Germany. OpenCast is used by several universities in Austria, which was another reason to go for this solution, hence we can easily generate synergies. The currently playout solution turned out to be sufficient in terms of functionality for the students and could be also easily used on mobile devices. For lower bandwidth connections we provided two different levels of quality. However, EMP entwine frequently crashed under higher parallel access. As a reason Extron stated that our CEPH storage is too slow and several parts of the software have to be moved to a faster storage. This could not be validated anymore since we replace the software and do not want to invest any more efforts. CEPH storage is an inexpensive way to generate a vast amount of storage. The drawbacks are that CEPH storage does not perform well with fast writing of small pieces of data, which is e.g. generated by database access. These parts of the software must be placed on a different storage. The huge video files of the lectures which are read only perform well. Also CEPH does not natively support windows platforms. Access from Windows platforms results in severe performance loss and cannot be recommended. For the preparation the by us chosen approach with three consecutive workshops with the teachers and the technicians for implementation turned out to be very effective. In the first session an overview was given what technical possibilities are available, in the next two workshops the concrete four formats were developed. The mixture of these formats was well perceived by the students. Hence from a didactical point of view we can clearly state from the evaluation results that students liked the new formats and gave a clear statement to continue this way. Only the video chunk format was evaluated ambivalently. Here some students stated that they better like longer and a smaller amount of recorded lectures. So it seems that students take their time for preparation and do not use short breaks for learning. They like to learn in longer periods of time with no interruptions in between. Parts which are of no interest can be skipped anyway easily. For 97% of the students the virtual parts of this module where clearly understandable. 90% of the students agreed that the recorded lectures increased their learning success and 72% agreed that they could better prepare for the exam. All these results encourage us to continue our way and to further improve the blended learning formats on our university.

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References 1. Weidner, K., Hermann-Lingen, C., Herzog, W., Jünger, J., Kruse, J., Zipfel, S., Köllner, V.: Learning objectives for psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy in light of the National Competency-Based Catalogue of Learning Objectives for Medicine (NKLM). Z. Psychosom. Med. Psychother. 61(3), 275–288 (2015) 2. Rehatschek, H.: Design and set-up of an automated lecture recording system in medical education. In: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning – Volume 715 of the series Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Budapest, Hungary, 27–29 September 2017, pp. 15–20 (2017). ISBN 978-3-319-73209-1. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73210-7 3. Rehatschek, H., Hruska, A.: Fully automated virtual lessons in medical education. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Kazan, Russian Federation, 25–27 September 2013, pp. 3–8 (2013). IEEE Catalog Number: CFP1323R-ART. ISBN 978-1-4799-0153-1 4. Rehatschek, H., Aigelsreiter, A., Regitnig, P., Kirnbauer, B.: Introduction of eLectures at the Medical University of Graz – results and experiences from a pilot trial. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Villach, Austria, 26– 28 September 2012 (2012). IEEE Catalog Number: CFP1323R-ART, ISBN 978-1-46732426-7 5. Rehatschek, H., Hye, F.: The introduction of a new virtual microscope into the eLearning platform of the Medical University of Graz. In: Proceedings of the 14th Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Pieštany, Slovakiapp, 21–23 September 2011, pp. 10–15 (2011). ISBN 978-1-4577-1746-8 6. Extron Electronics, Interfacing switching and control, May 2019. http://www.extron.com 7. StreamAMG broadcast quality, May 2019. https://www.streamamg.com 8. Panopto, May 2019. https://www.panopto.com 9. VITAL – Video Portal of the Medical University of Graz, May 2019. https://vital. medunigraz.at 10. Epiphan, capture stream record, May 2019. https://www.epiphan.com 11. Opencast Matterhorn, open source solution for automated video capture and distribution at scale, March 2019. http://www.opencast.org/matterhorn 12. Kaltura/video online video platform, company website, May 2019. https://corp.kaltura.com 13. Panopto – video content management, company website, May 2019. https://www.panopto. com 14. Presentations2Go – company website, March 2019. https://www.presentations2go.eu 15. Elan eV – eLearning academic network, March 2019. https://elan-ev.de 16. CEPH storage, May 2019. https://ceph.com 17. Open lecture. Video portal of university of Halle, May 2019. http://openlecture.uni-halle.de 18. LTI – Learning Tools Interoperability, IMS standard, May 2019. https://www.imsglobal.org/ activity/learning-tools-interoperability

Increasing College Student Engagement with Digital Media and a Dedicated Space: An Exploratory Approach Delia Perez-Lozano1(&) and Luis Rocha-Lona2 1

2

Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico [email protected] ESCA Santo Tomás, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico [email protected]

Abstract. Nowadays, college students have spent most—if not all—of their lives seeing the Internet as something natural. They are immersed in a digital environment and can’t conceive of the world without it. But there is a huge difference between making use of these digital technologies in a personal manner and using them in the context of a business. The purpose of this study was to analyse if giving students a dedicated space (laboratory) equipped with appropriate digital media has an impact on their engagement, considering engagement in its multidimensional forms that include behavioural, emotional, and cognitive aspects. A research group of 21 students was used, and participants were assigned to one of six teams that each worked with a different local NGO. To create the appropriate environment, an improvised lab was created in a 13  16-foot office using different elements to make the students feel comfortable. After assessment using qualitative and quantitative methods, the results indicated greater engagement in all three components that was sustained for the entire semester. Behavioural engagement involved commitment and dedication to activities; emotional engagement involved energy levels and joy felt in activities; and cognitive engagement encompassed concentration and weekday work hours. the results also showed that engagement in every dimension was greater in this course than in a traditional one. the educational environment was measured as a mixture of physical environment, emotional climate, and intellectual climate, with the last element considered the most important. This research shows that giving college students working with a challenging subject a dedicated space to work in has a strong impact on engagement levels. Keywords: Engagement
Digital media
Social media
Learning experience
Learning space
Laboratory
Educational innovation
Higher education

1 Introduction Teenagers and youngsters feel pleasure when immersed in a digital environment [1], given that they are constantly using devices that allow them access to the internet. Being also immersed in the new digital environment, companies are giving more importance to social media and are hiring people to work with these new tools [2]. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 16–26, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_2

Increasing College Student Engagement with Digital Media

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Currently, many universities are trying to teach students how to become community managers, who help companies benefit from all the new digital media, but very few universities have explored new ways of teaching this subject by creating dedicated spaces or laboratories devoted to this purpose.

2 Purpose Nearly all college students use social networks; they know how to handle them in a personal manner. But going from personal use to business use requires knowledge and abilities. This study aimed at examining the impact on student engagement of giving students a dedicated space (laboratory) equipped with an appropriate digital media environment. According to [3] (p. 4), “Student engagement is the glue, or mediator, that links important contexts… to students and, in turn, to outcomes of interest.” Therefore, it is relevant to consider engagement, in its multidimensional forms, as the most important element of this study. In that context, [4] considers three different types of engagement: behavioural, emotional, and cognitive. Behavioural engagement involves three aspects: positive conduct [5, 6]; involvement in academic and learning tasks [5, 7]; and participation in school-related activities [5]. Emotional engagement is defined as the way students react affectively in the classroom [8, 9] and their value and identification as belonging [10]. Cognitive engagement relates to the investment in learning. This investment can be psychological, such as challenging issues or flexibility in problem solving [8], or it can be academic, defined as merely mastering the knowledge, skills, or craft [11]. The educational environment is defined as the way students and teachers perceive or experience the classroom [12], basing these perceptions on three important aspects: physical environment, emotional atmosphere, and intellectual climate [13]. Different studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between achievement or any learning-related outcome and all types of engagement: behavioural [4, 14, 15], emotional [4, 14, 16], and cognitive [17, 18], but very few studies have tried to relate engagement with the educational environment and scholastic achievements.

3 Methods and Approach Because we are located on a small campus with few students, there was a need to take advantage of what we had available. A group for whom digital media was an important part of the syllabus was needed, and we therefore selected the only course of the fall term that met that criteria, called eCommerce and Sales, which had 21 students that made up our experimental group. All students were undergraduates with different career backgrounds: 13 were in marketing, four had business backgrounds, three were engineers, and one was in international business. The students were in their fourth to ninth semester, and the 29% males and 14% females were slated to graduate in December. Other than for the marketing students, this was an elective course. No control group was possible because no other eCommerce and Sales class or similar course was available.

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Because the focus of this study was attempting to measure the impact on engagement of a dedicated space or laboratory with a digital media environment, a digital media lab was improvised for the students. The lab, considered in this study as the physical environment, was built in a 13  16-foot office with three desks, two Macs, three Puffs, three chairs, one sofa, stickers, and markers. The Macs had all the useful software for designing, tracking, and analysing digital media. Students worked in teams of three or four with a local NGO of their choice. During the first half of the semester, they dedicated their time to learning the theory and determining what the NGO was doing in terms of a digital strategy. They began by certifying in Google Analytics and took the Hootsuite certificate course; they also learned about social media app analytics (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) and AdWords. At the same time, they analysed where their NGO stood in terms of website and social media outcomes. In order to gather richer and more descriptive information about student engagement, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. As noted earlier, the midterm evaluation was mostly qualitative, involving parts of the behavioural, emotional, and cognitive aspects of engagement. With the exception of the last factor, observation during class and individual interviews with students were used. The second half of the semester was completely hands-on. The students had to work on strategy, making or redesigning the NGO’s website, optimizing search engines, and creating content and communities for their social media. A few teams worked on offline activities too, to promote the NGO and generate content. They had to improve and demonstrate performance of the website and social media in addition to leaving programmed content for the next three months. Considering we had only one group with fewer than 30 students, we were unable to make an in-depth quantitative analysis. There was a brief midterm qualitative measurement of the emotional and behavioural engagement, taking into account that at that point, students had only invested their time in studying and not yet in any practical or hands-on element. At the end of the semester, a more complete qualitative and quantitative assessment was designed to measure all three elements of engagement— behavioural, emotional, and cognitive—and the impact of the educational environment. A summary of the theoretical background and all of the gathered measurements can be seen in Fig. 1.

4 Results 4.1

Mid-Term Results

Dedication (behavioural) and fellowship (emotional) were remarkable. The students’ attendance in class during this period was 90%, sustained and with no changes, throughout the entire semester. They teamed up, worked, solved learning activities, participated in debates, made expositions, and more, all with no complaints. Instead, the students wanted to stay longer and were always expecting more from the class. Grades at the midterm evaluation were an average of 89, which increased to 90 in the second half and ended the course at 91.

Increasing College Student Engagement with Digital Media

Variables Measured

Theoretical Background Positive conduct [5], [6] Involvement in academic Behavioural and learning tasks [5], [7]

Engagement [4]

Emotional

Midterm Measurement

Final Measurement

19

Construct

Observation

Questionnaire

Dedication

Interview

Questionnaire

Commitment

Participation in schoolrelated activities [5]

Not applicable Not applicable

Not applicable

Affective reaction in classroom [8], [9]

Observation

Questionnaire

Fellowship

Identification as belonging and having value [10]

Interview

Questionnaire

Energy level; joy

Challenging issues or Psychological flexibility in Not measured investment problem solving [8]

Questionnaire

Week-work hours investment

Mastering skills, crafts, Certifications, and exams knowledge [11]

Questionnaire

Concentration

Cognitive

Academic

Educational Environment [12]

Physical environment, emotional atmosphere, and intellectual climate [13]

Questionnaire Not measured Focus group

Physical environment Intellectual climate Above + emotional atmosphere

Fig. 1. Variables, theory, measurement, and constructs

During the midterm interviews, students were eager to talk about how they felt and the excitement they had in their projects, making it evident they were emotionally and behaviourally engaged. At that point, they had all taken the Google Analytics and Google AdWords certificate exams, resulting in 20 out of 21 students certified in both tools. In order to increase their understanding of social media analytics, every student had to specialize in two apps (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube) and get the appropriate certification in their analytics after taking the appropriate Hootsuite courses. Hootsuite was to be used as the basic software and app for posting, feedback, monitoring, and analysing all social media communications. With only the knowledge of how to use all these tools and before even starting to use them, students showed their eagerness to begin by giving comments such as, “Even if I like social networks and recognize their utility and necessity today, I never

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imagined myself as a community manager, but with Hootsuite, hire me, please. I want to use it” and “Personally, I am fascinated with Hootsuite! I did know there were platforms, but not this one in particular; I am surprised at all the tools it has and am willing to use it to handle my NGO’s networks. Now I understand tricks and love it.” With regard to the Google tools, there were comments like “I had never realized about the importance of a website or the relevance of how long a person stays on a page or even the number of visitors; now I understand why it is so important to design them properly”; “Wow! I never paid attention when searching something and the first results said they were ads, much less the way they were displayed. Now I understand why keywords are so relevant and know how to make my NGO appear first in every search… and how to place the map besides, and many other things. It’s just amazing!” Midterm qualitative research showed very high engagement in all the measured dimensions, with very positive comments that reflected students’ ongoing desire to continue with their social media projects and get hands-on with using everything they had learned up to that point. 4.2

End Term Results

As part of the end of term results, all of the dimensions of engagement were measured. Students were asked to answer a structured questionnaire, and 20 out of 21 students responded. Behavioural engagement involved the level of commitment and dedication students displayed in their activities throughout the course; emotional engagement measured their energy levels and the joy they felt in activities; and cognitive engagement had to do with concentration and the number of weekday work hours they spent per project type. Except for the work hours, which was open-ended, all of the questions used the same answer scale, ranging from very high (10 pts.) to high (8 pts.), to normal (6 pts.), to indifferent (4 pts.), to low (2 pts.) and very low (0 pts.). In addition to the engagement questions, the questionnaire also included two questions that helped measure the educational environment; the first one tried to set up the importance of the combination of professor, teammates, facilities, hardware, and software; the second one tried to distinguish if what was most important was the environment, the subject, or both. Since we only had an experimental group, but all of our students were taking at least four other courses that involved the development of projects (POL technique), it was decided that the questionnaire could compare the differences between a traditional POL technique project and this course’s digital media project. Figures 2, 3, 4, 5 show the counts of answers given by students. It can be seen that all of them had greater engagement in the digital media lab project than in POL technique projects. To determine if the differences were significant, an ANOVA analysis was conducted (Table 1), and the results showed that dedication, commitment, energy level and joy, and weekday hours worked were all significantly different for the digital media lab project as compared to a POL technique project. Another part of the end term results was the focus group designed to figure out the importance of the educational environment and which aspects of it were contributing to engagement or learning. This part was highly relevant because the quantitative results showed that the physical environment and the intellectual climate or subject were of

Increasing College Student Engagement with Digital Media

Fig. 2. Behavioral engagement

Fig. 3. Emotional engagement

Fig. 4. Cognitive engagement

Fig. 5. Educational environment

21

22

D. Perez-Lozano and L. Rocha-Lona Table 1. ANOVA analysis Variables

Project type

Dedication

Commitment

Fellowship

Energy level; joy

Weekday work hours

Concentration

Environment 6.90

Digital media project

Mean

8.00

8.00

7.60

7.60

6.00

7.80

Std. Dev.

1.298

1.298

1.392

1.536

2.052

1.704

1.774

Traditional project

Mean

7.00

6.90

6.90

6.20

4.40

7.20

6.20

Std. Dev.

1.376

1.518

1.651

1.576

1.536

1.881

1.824

Variable vs. project type

F

5.588

6.066

2.102

8.096

7.795

1.118

1.514

.023

.018

.155

.007

.008

.297

.296

Significance

equal importance, with many students choosing both as the most valuable part for their engagement and learning. Most students replied that having the lab—a physical environment—where they could have everything they needed to work and where they could feel comfortable and be themselves made them feel supported and simultaneously gave them confidence in what they were doing—emotional climate. They also appreciated knowing a professor was there to guide them and answer their questions. While social media was a common factor in their personal lives, looking at it from a different perspective, this time as a profession, made them realize the importance of content, community, and communication, all elements that Hootsuite and Google Analytics made easier for them to use. Comments such as “It is fascinating to be able to program all posts for weeks ahead in just one place!” or “Now I understand how to drive customers to a website, how not to lose them, and the importance of everything.” The focus group made evident the relevance of the physical environment and the emotional atmosphere, but it also showed that the subject (intellectual climate) was the most important part for engaging them in learning. To the students, working with an NGO of their choice, one they felt comfortable and identified with, and that would listen to them and allow them to make changes, was challenging and valuable. They analysed the NGO’s situation online and offline and defined a strategy for achieving their objectives. Though it was not a course requirement, the students’ involvement with their NGO went much further; most teams held offline fundraising activities, volunteered a few hours per week, and promoted the NGO among their friends for support. During the focus group, they said things like, “Literally, they had nothing and needed so much help” and “We had so many ideas, and they were so open to receiving them; all we had to do was get them going!” Furthermore, students’ opinions were heard, and the NGOs allowed them to change websites and post their designs during almost three months of strict control during which the students were allowed to program the posts for the following three months. Also, some NGOs assigned them a budget to use for online and offline advertising and public relations.

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5 Discussion Working in education, we want to provide students with high-quality teaching, and a prerequisite to that is an environment that is favourable for and conducive to learning [19]. In that context and considering that the purpose of this exploratory research was to determine if a lab (environment) for a social media project increased student engagement, there are a few outstanding elements. One simple element in this research is attendance. By itself, attendance might not mean much, but it is an essential element that can signal whether students are committed and if they are willing to learn from what the school offers to help them acquire capabilities needed for their future workplaces [4]. This means that school attendance should be high and that as students perceive the importance of a course, attendance should increase. For this study, the experimental group attendance for eCommerce and Sales could only be compared with three other courses taught by the same professor. As can be seen in Table 2, attendance for all courses was relatively high at the midterm but had decreased by the end of term, with the exception of the experimental group, which kept high attendance levels throughout.

Table 2. Course attendance comparison Course Management & Business model innovation International business intelligence Marketing & Creativity eCommerce & Sales

Mid-term attendance End of term attendance 97.0% 87.0% 89.0% 85.0% 97.8% 96.1% 90.0% 92.6%

Qualitative research concentrated mainly on analysing the environment’s impact and found that both the physical environment and the emotional atmosphere were relevant. Furthermore, it was found that, mainly, the intellectual climate had the strongest impact, with this factor referred to as the subject itself, which included the challenge it represented and the impact it had on students’ perception of being useful. It is valuable to consider that the environment should be conducive to or incentivize learning in an attempt to reduce academic failures or underachievement [20]. Therefore, the intellectual climate should be strongly considered as part of the environment and of students’ appreciation of their achievements. Quantitative research demonstrated that engagement was increased in all three components, with the behavioural aspect, measured as dedication and commitment, impacted in both. Emotional engagement was mainly reflected in the factor of energy level and joy, while cognitive engagement showed in the number of weekday work hours students dedicated to the project. Finally, to determine if the different engagement variables and the environment were related, Pearson’s correlation was used. As can be seen in Table 3, the environment was strongly correlated with all the engagement variables.

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D. Perez-Lozano and L. Rocha-Lona Table 3. Environment correlations Dedication Commitment Fellowship Energy level; joy

Environment Pearson .831** correlation Sig. (20.000 tailed)

.831**

.846**

0.000

0.000

.872** 0.000

Concentration Weekday work hours .843** 0.000

.848** 0.000

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

One of the most important outcomes in teaching is always the learning. Traditionally, learning has been measured through the final grades. Some studies have shown a positive correlation between achievement-related outcomes (learning) and behavioural engagement [4, 14, 15], emotional engagement [4, 14, 16], and cognitive engagement [4, 17, 18]. This study also demonstrated a positive correlation between students’ final grades and the different dimensions of engagement (see Table 4). One additional element was the relationship between final grades and the environment, with this last element having the strongest correlation. Table 4. Final grades correlations Dedication Commitment Fellow ship Final grades

Pearson correlation Sig. (2-tailed)

.596** 0.006

.596** 0.006

.562** 0.010

Energy level; Joy .620** 0.004

Concentration Week-work Environment hours .626** 0.003

.565** 0.009

.648** .002

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

6 Conclusions/Recommendations This study showed that giving college students a dedicated space to work in (such as a laboratory) when working on a challenging subject such as social media management has a strong impact on the levels in all three dimensions of student engagement, though not in the same proportion. Each dimension was measured in two different aspects, and when compared with a traditional course, only behavioural engagement was positively modified in both aspects, dedication and commitment. With emotional engagement, there was no difference in fellowship between a traditional course and the social media project, but the energy level and joy felt working on the course were greater for the latter. Something similar happened in cognitive engagement, where concentration did not show a difference between the two types of projects. Nonetheless, students dedicated almost one and a half additional hours to the social media project compared to the traditional one. Quantitively speaking, the physical environment did not show a significant difference between the types of project the students were working on, but it was strongly

Increasing College Student Engagement with Digital Media

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correlated with all of the engagement elements. Qualitatively speaking, the intellectual climate part of the project was identified as the most relevant aspect of the environment, but it must work hand-in-hand with the physical environment and the emotional atmosphere. Positive significant correlations were found among all the engagement elements, the environment, and students’ final grades. Despite all the conclusions arising from this exploratory research, no inferences to bigger groups or applications in other terms can be drawn from it. The experimental group was very small, and there was no control group. Further research is recommended to demonstrate how environment and engagement are related to lifelong learning outcomes (achievements), and different type of projects, along with larger experimental and control groups, are suggested. Acknowledgments. The authors would like to acknowledge the financial and the technical support of the Writing Lab, TecLabs, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in the production of this work.

References 1. Dominguez, F., López, R.: Uso de las redes sociales digitales entre los jóvenes universitarios en México. Hacia la construcción de un estado de conocimiento (2004–2014). Revista de Comunicación. Enero-diciembre 2015, issue 14, 48–69, 22p. (2015) 2. Katona, Z., Zubcsek, P., Sarvary, M.: Network effects and personal influences: the diffusion of an online social network. J. Mark. Res. 48(83), 425–443 (2011) 3. Reschly, A.L, Christenson, S.L.: Jingle, jangle, and conceptual haziness: evolution and future directions of the engagement construct. In: Handbook of Research on Student Engagement, LLC 2012, pp. 3–19. Springer Science + Business Media (2012) 4. Fredericks, J.A., Blumenfeld, P.C., Paris, A.H.: School engagement: potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Rev. Educ. Res. 74(1), 59–109 (2004) 5. Finn, J.D., Pannozzo, G.M., Voelkl, K.E.: Disruptive and inattentive withdrawn behaviour and achievement among fourth graders. Elem. Sch. J. 95, 421–454 (1995) 6. Finn, J.D., Rock, D.A.: Academic success among students at risk for school failure. J. Appl. Psychol. 82, 221–224 (1997) 7. Birch, S., Ladd, G.: The teacher-child relationship and children’s early school adjustment. J. Sch. Psychol. 35, 61–79 (1997) 8. Connel, J.P., Wellborn, J.G.: Competence, autonomy, and relatedness: a motivational analysis of self-system processes. In: Gunnar, M., Sroufe, L.A. (eds.) Minnesota Symposium on Child Psychology, vol. 23. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1991) 9. Skinner, E.A., Belmont, M.J.: Motivation in the classroom: reciprocal effect of teacher behaviour and student engagement across the school year. J. Educ. Psychol. 85, 571–581 (1993) 10. Finn, J.D.: Withdrawing from school. Rev. Educ. Res. 59, 117–142 (1989) 11. Newmann, F., Wehlage, G.G., Lamborn, S.D.: The significance and sources of student engagement. In: Newmann, F. (ed.) Student engagement and achievement in American secondary schools, pp. 11–39. Teachers College Press, New York (1992) 12. Helal, R.M., El-Masry, R., El-Gilany, A.H.: Quality of educational environment among egyptian medical students using dreem questionnaire. World J. Med. Edu. Res. 3(1), 6–14 (2013)

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13. Ibrahim, J.: Review of research in learning environment. JUMMC 11(1), 7–11 (2008) 14. Conel, J.P., Spencer, M.B., Aber, J.L.: Educational risk and resilience in African-American youth: context, self, action, and outcomes in school. Child Dev. 65, 493–506 (1994) 15. Marks, H.M.: Student engagement in instructional activity: patterns in the elementary, middle, and high school years. Am. Educ. Res. J. 37, 153–184 (2000) 16. Skinner, E.A., Welborn, J.G., Connell, J.P.: What it takes to do well in school and whether I’ve got it: the role of perceived control in children’s engagement and school achievement. J. Educ. Psychol. 82, 22–32 (1990) 17. Boekarts, M., Pintrich, P.R., Zeidner, M. (eds.): Handbook of Self Regulation: Theory, Research and Applications. Academic Press, San Diego (2000) 18. Zimmerman, B.J., Martinez-Pons, M.: Perceptions of efficacy and strategy use in the selfregulation of learning. In: Schunk, D.H., Meece, J.L. (eds.) Student Perceptions in the Classroom, pp. 185–207. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale (1992) 19. Mohsena, M., Debsarma, S., Haque, M.: Determining the quality of educational climate in a private medical college in Bangladesh via the “Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure” instrument. J. Young Pharm. 8(3), 266–274 (2016) 20. Bakhshialiabad, H., Bakhshi, M., Hassanshahi, G.: Students’ perceptions of the academic learning environment in seven medical sciences courses based on dreem. Adv. Med. Educ. Prac. 2015(6), 195–203 (2015)

Modeling the Behaviors of Participants in Meetings for Decision Making Using OpenPose Eiji Watanabe1(B) , Takashi Ozeki2 , and Takeshi Kohama3 1

2

Konan University, Kobe 658-8501, Japan e [email protected] Fukuyama University, Fukuyama, Hiroshima 729-0292, Japan 3 Kindai University, Kinokawa, Wakayama 649-6493, Japan http://we-www.is.konan-u.ac.jp

Abstract. This paper discusses the modeling for interactions between the behaviors of participants in a meeting for decision making. First, we adopt the behaviors (i.e., eye, facial, and hand movements) detected by OpenPose [9] as a skeleton detection algorithm using a single camera. Second, we propose a modeling method for the participant behaviors based on neural networks. Furthermore, we discuss the relationships between the participant behaviors and the model parameters in multilayered neural networks based on the experimental results. Notably, we show that the participant characteristics are represented by the indices based on the parameters of the abovementioned models. Keywords: Meeting Behavior · OpenPose

1

· Decision making · Participant · Modeling ·

Introduction

Collaborative and cooperative learning styles have recently been introduced for active learning [1–3]. In collaborative and cooperative learning, “teaching” students have to monitor the expression and non-verbal behaviors of “learning” students. However, it is difficult for one or a few teachers to correctly evaluate the cooperation of multiple groups. Similarly, in many meetings, participants try to estimate the intention of other participants based on non-verbal behaviors [4,5]. Formal meetings can be roughly categorized into two styles: (i) information sharing (communication and report) and (ii) problem solving (decision-making and brainstorming). In decision-making meetings, some participants give opposing opinions to those who provide approving opinions concerning the speaker’s viewpoint. McCowan et al. proposed an approach to the automatic meeting analysis that considers a meeting as a sequence of group-level events, called meeting actions [6]. However, some participants show their opinions in expressions and facial movements without voicing them out. Participants can also evaluate that the meeting had a friendly atmosphere with non-verbal behaviors. c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020  M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 27–38, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_3

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Therefore, meeting participants must analyze the behaviors of their fellow participants while considering their decisions with relation to their own opinions and assess the meeting progress. Similarly, learners must estimate the understanding for given contents with each other in cooperative learning. If we can construct models to represent behaviors, we can evaluate the relationships between the behavior and the influence of participants. The authors have already discussed the relationship between non-verbal behaviors and understanding of students in cooperative learning [7]. We can apply the models of the participant behaviors in the analysis of student behaviors in collaborative learning [8]. However, the non-verbal behaviors of participants and the “teaching/learning” students are represented by the facial size detected by the camera. The exact direction of the facial movement has not yet been carefully discussed. This study discusses the modeling for the interactions between the behaviors of participants in a meeting for decision-making. First, we adopt the behaviors (i.e., eye, facial, and hand movements) detected by OpenPose [9] as a skeleton detection algorithm using a single camera. Second, we propose a modeling method for the participant behaviors based on neural networks. Third, we discuss the relationships between the participant behaviors and the model parameters in multi-layered neural networks based on the experimental results. We show that the parameters in the abovementioned models are strongly related to the participant behaviors and the meeting progress.

2 2.1

Detection of Participant Behaviors Decision-Making Meetings

We can observe non-verbal behaviors with respect to eye contact and facial movements in decision-making meetings (Fig. 1). When a speaker has comments, the other participants would look at the speaker with non-verbal behaviors including negative/positive intentions. Furthermore, the participants will try to estimate these intentions based on the behaviors of the other participants. Therefore, we have to detect the participant behaviors for the meeting analysis.

Speaker

Speaker

Listener

Listener Listener

Fig. 1. Behaviors of the participants in decision-making meetings.

Modeling the Behaviors of Participants in Meetings for Decision Making

2.2

29

Detection of the Participants’ Body Part Positions

OpenPose [9] can detect a human body and the hand, facial, and foot keypoints (a total of 135 keypoints) as follows based on a single image: – Body: “Neck”, “Shoulder”, “Elbow”, “Wrist”, · · · , – Face: “Nose”, “Eye”, “Mouth”, · · · , – Hand: “Finger”, “Palm”, · · · . We can detect the following non-verbal behaviors in decision-making meetings: (i) looking at the other participants, and (ii) looking at the document at hand using OpenPose. We define herein as follows the positions pi (t) of some body parts for the non-verbal behaviors of the i-th participant sitting around a table: L R R R pi (t) = (xL Eye,i (t), yEye,i (t), xEye,i (t), yEye,i (t), xN ose,i (t), yN ose,i (t), p Up Lo Lo xU Lip,i (t), yLip,i (t), xLip,i (t), yLip,i (t), xN eck,i (t), yN eck,i (t), L R R T xL Hand,i (t), yHand,i (t), xHand,i (t), yHand,i (t)) ,

(1)

where i denotes the participant number and the superscripted “L” and “R” denote “left” and “right” respectively. Superscripted “U p” and “Lo” denote “upper” and “lower” respectively. Figure 2 shows that we can obtain images including all participants by using an omnidirectional camera placed in the center of the participants. Therefore, we can discriminate the behaviors (i.e., “Looking at other participants” and “Looking at documents at hand”) based on the positions pi (t) of some body parts detected by OpenPose. For example, we can summarize the relationships between the participant behaviors and the positions pi (t) as follows: R L R – Looking at the other participants: |xL Eye,i (t)−xEye,i (t)|, |yEye,i (t)−yEye,i (t)|, Up U p Lo Lo (t)| ≥ ε (|yLip,i (t) − yLip,i (t)| < ε), – Speaking (Not Speaking): |yLip,i (t) − yLip,i L R – Gesture using hands: xHand,i (t), xHand,i (t).

L (xLEye(t), yEye (t)) R R (t)) (xEye(t), yEye

(xN eck (t), yN eck (t)) L (t)) (xLHand(t), yHand R (t), y (xR Hand Hand (t))

Fig. 2. Positions of some body parts and participant behaviors.

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2.3

E. Watanabe et al.

Detection of the Features for the Participant Behaviors

Next, we can convert the positions pi (t) of some body parts defined by Eq. (1) into the features zm (t) considering the behaviors as follows: L R L R zi (t) = (zEye,i (t), zEye,i (t), zLip,i (t), zHand,i (t), zHand,i (t))T ,

(2)

where i(= 1, 2, · · · , P ) denotes the participant number. Each array of zi (t) is defined herein as follows: ⎧ |xL Eye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)| ⎪ L ⎪zEye,i , (t) = ⎪ L ⎪ ⎪ |xEye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)| + |xR ⎪ Eye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)| ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ |xR ⎪ Eye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)| R ⎪ ⎪ z , (t) = ⎨ Eye,i L |xEye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)| + |xR Eye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)| (3) Up Lo ⎪ |yLip,i (t) − yLip,i (t)| ⎪ ⎪ z , (t) = ⎪ Lip,i Up ⎪ Lo (t)| ⎪ maxt |yLip,i (t) − yLip,i ⎪ ⎪ ⎪ L R ⎪ (t) yHand,i (t) yHand,i ⎪ ⎪z L R ⎩ , zHand,i . (t) = Hand,i (t) = yN ose,i (t) yN ose,i (t) L R zEye,i (t) and zEye,i (t) change according to the direction of the facial movement. Moreover, zLip,i (t) changes according to the open/close movement of the mouth, L R (t) and zHand,i (t) change according to the vertical position (gesture) and zHand,i L R (t) > zEye,i (t), then the participant is looking of the hands. For example, if zEye,i at the left participant. If zLip,i (t) becomes large, then the participant is speakL R (t) and/or zHand,i (t) become large, then the participant moves ing. If zHand,i participant hands to near participant face. Figure 3 shows the features zi (t) defined by Eq. (3) and the positions pi (t) of the body parts of the participants.

L zEye,i (t) =

|xLEye,i(t) − xN ose,i(t)| (|xLEye,i(t) − xN ose,i(t)| + |xR Eye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)|

R zEye,i (t) =

|xR Eye,i (t) − xN ose,i(t)| (|xLEye,i(t) − xN ose,i(t)| + |xR Eye,i (t) − xN ose,i (t)|

zLip,i(t) =

Up Lo (t) − yLip,i (t)| |yLip,i Up Lo (t)| maxt |yLip,i (t) − yLip,i

L (t) = zHand,i

L yHand,i yR (t) (t) R (t) = Hand,i , zHand,i yN ose,i(t) yN ose,i(t)

Fig. 3. Features defined by Eq. (3).

Modeling the Behaviors of Participants in Meetings for Decision Making

3

31

Modeling of the Participant Behaviors

When one participant gives comments, the other participants will look at the participant and nod with negative/positive intentions. The behaviors of these participants influence each other. Figure 1 shows the participant behaviors with respect to the eye contact and the facial movements during decision-making meetings. We must monitor the behavior of each participant and the interactions among all the participants to evaluate the meeting progress. This section introduces a modeling method for the interaction between the participants based on a time-series model [7]. We also discuss herein the modeling of the interaction between the participant behaviors. 3.1

Modeling of the Interaction Between the Participant Behaviors

The non-verbal behaviors of the participants in the decision-making meetings are related to each other. Therefore, we evaluate the strength of the interactions between the participant behaviors using the models with the time-delay. We introduce the following non-linear time-series model for the features zi (t) = {zm,i (t)} for the participants. Concretely, this model can predict the m-th feature of the i-th participant by the past features zn,k (t − ) of all participants. ⎛ ⎞ J  zm,i (t) = f ⎝ αm,i,j hm,j (t − )⎠ + e(t), j=1

⎛ N P L ⎞ J   =f⎝ αm,i,j f wn,j,k, zn,k (t − ) ⎠ + e(t),

(4)

n=1 k=1 =1

j=1

where i and k denote the participant numbers; m and n denote the event numbers; e(t) denotes a Gaussian noise; αm,i,j stands for the influence of the nonverbal behaviors by the other participants; J denotes the number of hidden units; hm,j (t − ) denotes the output of the hidden unit. Moreover, wn,j,k, denotes the time-correlation for the non-verbal behavior of the k-th participant and f (·) denotes the sigmoid function f (x) = tanh x. Figure 4 shows that the non-linear time-series model defined by Eq. (4) can be represented by the three-layered neural network model [10]. The learning object for this neural network model is to minimize the following error function E. E=

T  t=1

Et =

T  M  P 

(zm,i (t) − zˆm,i (t))2 ,

(5)

t=1 m=1 i=1

where T , m, and i denote the length for the modeling section, the event number, and the participant number respectively. zˆm,i (t) denotes the prediction value for the feature zm,i (t). We use the forgetting learning algorithm [11] to clarify

32

E. Watanabe et al.

of the internal representations of the neural networks by the elimination of the unnecessary weights using the following error function.   |αm,i,j | + |wm,j,k, |), (6) EF = E + ε( m,i,j

m,j,k,

where ε represents the amount of forgetting.

D A B

A

C

C The m-th feature of Participant-A zm,A (t − )

wm,j,k,

The m-th feature of Participant-B z (t − ) D m,B The m-th feature of Participant-C zm,C (t − ) The m-th feature of Participant-D B zm,D (t − )

hm,j (t − )

αm,i,j

The m-th feature of Participant-A zm,A (t) The m-th feature of Participant-B zm,B (t) The m-th feature of Participant-C zm,C (t) The m-th feature of Participant-D zm,D (t)

Fig. 4. Neural network model for Eq. (4).

3.2

Evaluation of the Interaction Based on the Differential Coefficient

We represented the interaction between the participant behaviors in Eq. (4). In this equation, the weights {αm,i,j } and {wm,j,k, } play important roles on the interaction modeling. We evaluate herein that the change of the output zm,k (t) in the output unit by the input zm,i (t − ) in the input unit with the time-delay  using the following differential coefficient: J  ∂zm,i (t)  = zm,k (t) αm,i,j wn,j,k, hm,j (t − ), ∂zn,k (t − ) j=1

(7)

∂zm,i (t) becomes large, the input ∂zn,k (t − ) zn,k (t−) influences on the output zm,i (t). We use herein the two indices, namely Δi,k and Δm,n , to represent the “interactions” as follows: where  denotes the differential operator. If

– Influence of the i-th participant on the k-th participant Δi,k : We introduce the following index Δi,k , which evaluates the change of the output zm,k (t) in the output units by the input zn,i (t − ) in the input units with the time-delay . 2 M  T  L M   ∂zm,i (t) 1 . (8) Δi,k = T LM N m=1 n=1 t=1 ∂zn,k (t − ) =1

Modeling the Behaviors of Participants in Meetings for Decision Making

33

– Influence of the m-th feature (body part) on the n-th feature Δm,n : We introduce the following index Δm,n , which evaluates the influence the m-th feature (body part) on the n-th feature: Δm,n =

2 L P T P ∂zm,i (t) 1  . T LP 2 ∂zn,k (t − ) i=1 t=1 k=1

4

(9)

=1

Analysis of a Meeting

4.1

Outline

We held a decision-making meeting under the following conditions: (i) theme: selection of food menu (Fig. 5(a)) and the amount of food to be provided for a party; (ii) length of the meeting: approximately 7 [min]); (iii) participants: four undergraduate students, and (iv) camera: MR360 (King Jim Co. Ltd.) which is equipped with four cameras and an omni directional microphone. Figure 5(b) shows the timing of speaking by participants. Here, the red lines indicate the changes in the order (food menu and amount).

B

C

Japanese-style

Chinese-style

Change of order

Western-style D

A

Sushi

Sandwich

(a) Menu

Pizza

0

Comment 50

100

150

200

250

300

350 Time [sec]

(b) Timing of comments

Fig. 5. Menu and timing of comments (red lines: the change of the order (food menu and amount)).

Table 1 shows the progress (timing of the change (e.g., at 196 [s]) of the order and comments by multiple participants (e.g., at 36 [s])) of the meeting and the comments by the participants. We can summarize the characteristics of the comments as follows: (i) Participant A: comments were different from those characterizing the flow of the meeting; (ii) Participant B: followed the lead of Participant D (at 249 [s]); (iii) Participant C: made only a few important comments (e.g., at 395 [s]); (iv) Participant D: commented on the management of the meeting progress (e.g., at 35 [s]).

34

E. Watanabe et al.

Table 1. Progress of the meeting (“J”; Japanese style, “W”; Western style, “C”; Chinese style, “S”; sandwich, “P”; pizza) Time [s] Speaker ABCD Comment

Order J C W S P

4.2

22

A

Tentatively

1 1 1

0 0

27

C

“Pizza” too

1 1 1

0 1

35

D

“Pizza” or “Sandwich”

1 1 1

0 1

36

ABC

“Pizza”

1 1 1

0 1

176

D

With beer!

1 1 1

0 1 0 1

177

AB

With beer!

1 1 1

196

B

“W”: 1→2, “C”: 1→2. Another one?

1 2 2

0 1

216

B

Do not leave dishes!

1 2 2

0 1

222

ABCD

No problem!

1 2 2

0 1

241

C

“J”, “W”, “C”, and “Pizza”. How much? 1 2 2

0 1

248

D

“Pizza”: 1→2

1 2 2

0 1

249

B

“Pizza”: 1→2

1 2 2

0 1

257

D

The total is 16,500 Yen

1 1 1

0 2

272

B

“Sandwich” for breakfast

1 1 1

0 2

277

ABC

(nodding)

1 1 1

0 2

283

D

How many?

1 1 1

0 2

289

B

“Sandwich”: 2?

1 1 1

0 2

336

B

“C”: 2?

1 1 1

2 2

339

D

“C”: 1→2, “J”: 1, “W”: 2→1

1 1 1

2 2

342

D

“P”: 2, “S”: 1

1 1 1

2 2

374

D

Is this sushi good?

1 2 1

2 2

377

ABC

(laughing)

1 2 1

2 2

380

ABCD

No problem

1 2 1

2 2

390

ABD

Finish?

1 2 1

2 2

395

C

“W”: 1→2?

1 2 1

2 2

396

ABD

“W”: 1→2!

1 2 1

2 2

405

D

“J:”:1, “W”:2, “C”:2, “S”:2, “P”:2

1 2 2

2 2

410

BD

OK?

1 2 2

2 2

412

ABCD

Finished

1 2 2

2 2

Features for the Participant Behaviors

Figure 6 shows the features for the participant behaviors. The feature characteristics can be summarized as follows: – Figure 6(a) shows that the face movement of Participant B is small, while those of participants C and D are large. L (t) of all the participants – Figure 6(b) depicts the eye movements zEye,i becomes large in some sections (e.g., [130:200] [s]).

Modeling the Behaviors of Participants in Meetings for Decision Making

35

– Figure 6(c) shows that the lip movements zLip,i (t) of all the participants quickly change because of the response. L – Figure 6(d) illustrated that the hand movements zHand,i (t) of participants A and B are large because of the gestures and because they are touching their faces.

Left Participant-B Movement: Large

Participant-C

Participant-B

Movement: Small

Participant-C

Participant-D

Participant-D

Participant-A 0

Participant-A 200

Time [sec]

400

0

Participant-C

200

Time [sec]

400

L (b) zEye,i (t)

(a) Face movement Participant-B

Right

Open

Participant-B

Close

Participant-C

Participant-D

Participant-D

Participant-A

Participant-A

0

200

Time [sec]

400

0

(c) zLip,i (t)

200

Time [sec]

400

L (d) zHand,i (t)

Fig. 6. Features for the participant behaviors.

4.3

Modeling Results of the Non-verbal Behaviors of the Participants

We used the non-linear time-series model defined by Eq. (4) and the features shown in Fig. 6. This model can be represented by the neural network model shown in Fig. 4. We use herein the following parameters for the size of the neural networks: – – – – –

the the the the the

number of participants: P = 4, number of divided sections: 15, length of each section: 30 [s], length for the modeling: L = 10 [s], number of the features zm (t): M = 5,

36

E. Watanabe et al.

– the numbers of input, hidden, and output units: L × M × P , J = 10, and M × P. Figure 7 depicts the indices Δi,k and Δm,n defined by Eqs. (8) and (9). Here, the size of circle indicates the value of each index. Figure 7(a) shows the index Δi,k (influence of the i-th participant on the k-th participant). We can summarize the characteristics of each participant as follows: (i) Participant A is influenced by the other participants in Section. 7, 14, and 15; (ii) Participant B is hardly influenced by the other participants in all sections, and the behaviors of this participant are small as shown in Fig. 6; (iii) Participant C is influenced by other participants in many sections; (iv) Participant D is influenced by the other participants in Sections. 1, 8, 11, 12, and 15. Figure 7(b) shows the index Δm,n (influence the m-th feature (body part) on the n-th feature). We set m = 1 L L L (t)). Feature zEye,i (t) is influenced by feature zHand,i (t) (n = 4) as shown (zEye,i L (t) for the by the cyan circle in many sections. We can guess that feature zEye,i eye movement is sensitive to the movements of hand movements of the other participants. k: Participant ABCD

i: Participant A D C B A D C B

ΔA,B

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Section

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8 Section

(a) Δi,k : Influence of the i-th participant on the k-th participant n: Feature L (t) n = 1 : zEye,i R (t) n = 2 : zEye,i n = 3 : zLip,i (t) L (t) n = 4 : zHand,i R n = 5 : zHand,i (t)

L (t) for each section m = 1 : zEye,i

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15 Section

(b) Δm,n : Influence the m-th feature on the n-th feature

Fig. 7. Δi,k (influence of the i-th participant on the k-th participant) and Δm,n (influence the m-th feature (body part) on the n-th feature).

Modeling the Behaviors of Participants in Meetings for Decision Making

5

37

Conclusions

This paper discussed the modeling of the interactions between the behaviors of participants in a meeting for decision-making. First, we adopted the behaviors (i.e., eye, facial, and hand movements) detected by OpenPose [9]. Next, we proposed a modeling method for the participant behaviors based on neural networks. Third, we proposed two indices, namely Δi,k and Δm,n , to representing the “interactions” based on the internal representations of neural networks. Finally, we showed that index Δi,k indicated the characteristics of each participant based on the experimental results. Based on these results for modeling the decision-making meeting, we can easily apply the detection methods of participants and the proposed models for their behaviors to modeling learners in cooperative/collaborate learning. We would like to discuss the following in the future work: (i) the evaluation of the activity based on the modeling results; (ii) the relationships between the modeling results and the interview on participants; (iii) the estimation of the key person; (iv) application of the proposed methods to the cooperative learning environment; and (v) the estimation of the cooperation of learners in cooperative/collaborate learning. Acknowledgements. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP19K12261 and JP19K03095.

References 1. Sugie, S.: An Invitation to Cooperative Learning. Nakanishiya, Kyoto (2011) 2. Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T.: Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom. Interaction Book Co., New York (1993) 3. Martinez-Maldonado, R., Yacef, K., Kay, J.: TSCL: a conceptual model to inform understanding of collaborative learning processes at interactive tabletops. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 83, 62–82 (2015) 4. Otsuka, K., Araki, S., Ishizuka, K., Fujimoto, M., Heinrich, M., Yamato, J.: A Realtime multimodal system for analyzing group meetings by combining face pose tracking and speaker diarization. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces, pp. 257–264 (2008) 5. Shinnishi, M., Kasuya, Y., Inamoto, H.: Wi-Wi-Meter: a prototype system of evaluating meeting by measuring of activity. IEICE Technical report, HCS2014-63, pp. 19–24 (2014) 6. McCowan, I., Gatica-Perez, S., et al.: Automatic analysis of multimodal group actions in meetings. IEEE Trans. PAMI 27(3), 305–317 (2005) 7. Watanabe, E., Ozeki, T., Kohama, T.: Analysis of behaviors of participants in meetings. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, p. 12 (2017) 8. Watanabe, E., Ozeki, T., Kohama, T.: Analysis of non-verbal behaviors by students in cooperative learning. In: Proceedings of 8th International Conference on Collaboration Technologies, p. 9 (2016)

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9. Cao, Z., Simon, S., Wei, S., Sheikh, Y.: Realtime multi-person 2D pose estimation using part affinity fields. https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.08050. Accessed 12 Dec 2018 10. Rumelhart, D.E., McClelland, J.L.: The PDP Research Group: Parallel Distributed Processing. MIT Press, Cambridge (1986) 11. Ishikawa, M.: Structural learning with forgetting. Neural Netw. 9(3), 509–521 (1996)

Distance Interactive Collaborative Training for Future Teachers Venera Viktorovna Korobkova1, Larisa Alexandrovna Kosolapova2(&), Margarita Alexandrovna Mosina1, Anna Illarionovna Sannikova1, and Natalya Vladimirovna Tarinova1 1

Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University, Perm, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 Perm State University, Perm, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. The paper discusses the questions connected with managing distance teaching and learning at the humanitarian pedagogical university. The article identifies the opportunities for interactive collaborative distant training for students – future teachers – and developing their practical skills and competences in solving usual and non-standard problems, shaping personal characteristics. The study shows the importance of providing supportive environment for learners. The paper demonstrates the main tool for the pilot study – multiple variable repetition of transitions between ‘theory-practice’, ‘practice-theory’ which was based on different forms of cognitive and pedagogical activity that provided step-by-step development of pedagogical competence of future teachers. The main focus is on the interactive forms of collaborative learning, using information-communication technologies both during intersession periods (online) and in the classroom together with the teacher (offline). The article describes the main output of the research which is resulted in the development of students’ communicative competence as well as readiness and ability for professional-research pedagogical performance, continuous professional development, development of individual teaching style, development of pedagogical thinking and mindset, self-analysis of own professional performance, information and media literacy. Keywords: Interaction competence


Collaborative learning environment
Pedagogical

1 Context In recent years, distance teaching and learning has become increasingly popular among the students and teachers who perceive it as beneficial [1]. At the same time there are many questions connected with managing such forms of education, providing supportive environment for learners, developing their practical skills and competences in solving usual and non-standard problems, shaping personal characteristics still remain unanswered. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 39–49, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_4

40

V. V. Korobkova et al.

2 Purpose Online education can be recognized as a tangible and interactive learning experience through which students learn and develop necessary competences needed in their future profession. Students are able to learn their desire course and subjects on their suitable time, gain new skills and strengthen their knowledge level staying in their own place. However, distant training poses some inherent weaknesses as well. If we do not change the educational technology, the process of learning may remain non-productive, when the role of a student is passive; their learning process is built around the sample which is provided by the teacher, and is aimed only at reception and providing an answer which does not require the student’s personal opinion. The aim of this paper is to identify the opportunities for interactive collaborative distant training for students–future teachers–and developing their professional pedagogical competence.

3 Approach The research has been done in Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education ‘Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University’. The pilot study involved 100 students of the Faculty of History and the Faculty of Natural Science, who were divided into control (51) and treatment groups (49). For the purpose of identifying the validity of the research there has been worked out and implemented a diagnostic and reflective complex which aimed at assessment and self-assessment of the process of the students’ pedagogical competence development: its socio-personal, motivational, communicative, cognitive and technological components. The set of diagnostic methods included: (1) a traditional test (electronic version, AST-test) for assessing the cognitive component, monitoring the dynamics of knowledge integrity and reinforcement; (2) a uniquely-designed competence-oriented test that includes the tasks based on theoretical knowledge practice for the analysis of the situations within the educational process, self-observation lesson forms for the assessment of the technological component. The reflective complex included: (1) observation; questioning with the help of the questionnaire “Ability for selfdevelopment” by Shamova [2]; case-test “Pedagogical skills” by Orlov [3] for the assessment of the socio-personal component; (2) psychological test “Test of professional motivation” [4] for the assessment of the motivational component; (3) tests by Zakharova “Test of socio-psychological abilities”, “Test of logicalinformation skills”, “Test of language skills”[5] for the assessment of the communicative component. The mathematical methods of test data analysis have been used. The validity was determined with reference to Student’s t-test, average middle level indicator (MLI),

Distance Interactive Collaborative Training for Future Teachers

41

which was calculated as follows: 5–high, 4–middle, 3–satisfactory, 2–low, 1–below low, and variety coefficient [6].

4 Result The university part-time students took part in the research, and they were observed during four years of their studies. At the beginning of the research the students were divided into two groups: – reference group (51 people), among them 26 students of the Natural Science Department (reference group 1) and 25 students of the History Department (reference group 2) who were taught according to the traditional educational model; – experimental group (49 people), among them; – 15 students of the Natural Science Department (E-S1), who were taught according to the conception of the experimental-analytical education but without distance learning; – 20 students of the Natural Science Department (E-S2) and 14 students of the History Department (E-H3) who were taught according to the same conception but with distance learning. Firstly, it was proved that both groups were homogeneous. The statistics shown below proves that. The analysis of the test results of their pedagogical skills (case-test “Pedagogical skills” by A.A. Orlov) showed that the score in the experimental group (78,34 ± 5,2) and reference group (79.4 ± 3.1) didn’t differ (p > 0,05). The analysis of their professional motivation (Table 1) also proves that there is no difference between the groups.

Table 1. Professional motivation research (experimental groups) Type of professional motivation Indicators in points Reference groups Experimental groups Student’s t-test Own work importance 9.6 9.3 0.06 > 0,05 Social work value 3.8 3.5 0.93 > 0,05 Self-esteem 8.9 8.7 0.08 > 0,05 Professional skill 6.1 6.4 0.98 > 0,05

The motives of the students in reference and experimental groups do not differ. However, the motive of their own work importance predominates. It is proved by Student coefficient. For the purpose of communicative competence assessment the study of the students’ logical-information skills was undertaken. The results are shown in Table 2.

42

V. V. Korobkova et al. Table 2. Level of the students’ logical-information skills

Logical-information communicative skills (a) Information density (b) Volume of information (c) Synonymity (d) Reasoning (e) Feedback (f) Stating a problem (g) Aim (h) Identifying terms, concepts, facts (i) Comparing and contrasting concepts (j) Using different types of reasoning (k) Using transformation techniques (l) Identifying main information

Reference groups 4,3 4,5 3,8 3,4 3,9 3,5 3,2 4,7

Experimental groups 4,1 4 3,8 3,8 3,7 3,8 3,5 4,1

Student’s t-test 0.27 > 0,05 0.375 > 0,05 0.27 > 0,05 0.25 > 0,05 0.27 > 0,05 0.324 > 0,05 0.312 > 0,05 0.24 > 0,05

3,1

3,8

0.27 > 0,05

3,0

3,6

0.25 > 0,05

3,2 4,0

3,8 4,2

0.32 > 0,05 0.33 > 0,05

It can be seen that all the logical-information communicative skills of the students of both groups were on the minimal level of development. Also, at the beginning of the research the reliable differences were not revealed. In addition, a uniquely-designed competence-oriented test that includes the tasks based on theoretical knowledge practice for the analysis of the situations within the educational process was carried out in reference and experimental groups (Table 3).

Table 3. Test results in reference and experimental groups Test level

2nd year

Reference group (51)

Experimental group (49)

Knowledgeoriented test

MLI

Competenceoriented test

MLI

Knowledgeoriented test

MLI

Competenceoriented test

MLI

2,28

abs

3,32

abs

2,42

abs

1

abs

%

High

1

4,0

6

24,0

Middle

1

4,0

5

20,0

2

Satisfactory

6

24,0

9

36,0

8

13

52,0

1

4,0

4

16,0

4

16,0

Low Below low

%

%

%

6

23,1

7,7

6

23,1

30,8

8

30,8

11

42,3

4

15,4

4

15,4

2

7,7

1st year High

0

0,0

5

19,2

Middle

0

0,0

6

23,1

Satisfactory Low Below low

1,92

3,42

0

0,0

2

8,7

0

0,0

1,83

6

26,1

6

23,1

12

46,2

5

21,7

14

60,9

12

46,2

1

3,8

9

39,1

1

4,3

8

30,8

2

7,7

9

39,1

0

0,0

3,39

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The test results of the competence-oriented test were better than the results of the knowledge-oriented test. However, the general level of test results is not higher than the middle level in the reference groups as well as in the experimental groups. In order to assess the groups’ homogeneity we analysed the middle level indicator (MLI) in all categories. The percentage is shown in Table 3. Thus, according to the statistics MLI of the reference and experimental groups in the knowledge-oriented test is lower than the middle level, which is for the 5-level scale is 3.00, and they do not statistically-valid differ (p > 0,05). The same situation was revealed with the competence-oriented test, where MLI in the reference and experimental groups statistically-valid equals theoretically middle 3,00 at p > 0,05. The results of the summative stage of the experiment proved the necessity of experimentally-analytical teaching process in the form of distance learning. Besides, the homogeneity of the reference and experimental groups was statistically-valid proved. Next, within the formative experiment special pedagogical environment was created for the development of students’ pedagogical competence by means of distance learning. The main tool for the pilot study was multiple variable repetition of transitions between ‘theory-practice’, ‘practice-theory’ which was based on different forms of cognitive and pedagogical activity that provided step-by-step development of pedagogical competence of future teachers (experimental-analytical approach). In the process of education the greatest attention was paid to the training by means of interactive forms of collaborative learning, using information-communication technologies both during intersession periods (online) and in the classroom together with the teacher (offline). According to the experimental-analytical conception the process of teacher training must be aimed at the development of students’ ability to build their integrated individualized pedagogical knowledge and the ability to use it creatively according to the pedagogical situation and interaction with pupils. Precisely this kind of knowledge is valuable and is considered to be the conceptual foundation for the pedagogical competence of a future teacher. In the experimental-analytical model a student plays the role of a partner for university teachers, a co-author of their own education; they work out their independent individual learning route and help their peers to do the same. The implementation of an experimental-analytical model of teaching pedagogy involves the use of the technology of gradual interpenetration of cognitive and practical pedagogical activities as additional in the work of a modern teacher-a selfdeveloping personality. This technology involves reliance on such types of cognitive activity as: (1) daily activity and social communication; (2) academic: academic and research, academic and modeling, academic and professional; (3) professional: teacher training, research, communication (pedagogical communication); (4) reflexive-evaluative as the basis of self-understanding; (5) self-education and self-transformation. Each of the activities is developed from course to course in terms of content, development of students’ activity at each stage of their performance, from goal-setting to the learning outcome analysis.

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The study of pedagogical theory within the experimental-analytical model is not separated from the teaching practice in the framework of academic activities and in daily professional activities on the principles of distance learning. The goal of experimental and analytical teaching in pedagogy is implemented in the structure of the distance learning form more fully and personally oriented, ensuring the effectiveness of the process of part-time students’ pedagogical competence development, readiness for pedagogical activity and professional and personal selfdevelopment. The content of the Pedagogy module remains the same as when implementing an experimental-analytical model in full-time education, but includes additional knowledge about the formation, development, and correction of pedagogical competence in the totality of its components. The content of the Pedagogy module develops readiness and ability for professional research activities; professional self-development; development of an individual pedagogical style; development of pedagogical thinking and mindset; reflection of their professional activities; information competence as readiness to work on the Internet is becoming more important. Using the possibilities of distance learning allows implementing the technologies that are important for experimental-analytical teaching in pedagogy: problem-solving learning, watching and analyzing video, learning through communication; the transition from teaching and research to quasi-research and professional research, etc. The students were given the research tasks that required application of students’ knowledge for educational process observation and evaluation (description of a form teacher performance, parts of a lesson). Besides, the following activities were also included: interactive activities while delivering lectures and conducting seminars; feedback and reflection of students’ personal experience as teachers (such as playing the role of a pupil, a form teacher, a brother or sister); tasks that required using algorithms of students’ practical teaching experience. Also, the forms of managing cognitive activity were supplemented by independent and collaborative work with an electronic manual, e-mail, an electronic library, and textbooks on paper; by creating presentations; micro-research; on-line consultations, forums, webinars, professional chats, video conferences and other active and interactive forms. From the point of view of the forms of organizing education at different stages of the distance learning form on the basis of experimental and analytical training, the following is assumed. 1. At the organizational stage: a consultation with a university teacher on the working conditions via the Internet; a consultation on the timing of the tests, homework deadlines. 2. At the stage of training-1–compulsory attendance of lectures, seminars, workshops (in-person during the session). The use of knowledge to analyze parts of the pedagogical process (transition “theory - practice”) is possible during microteaching in the form of role-playing games, for example–a class conflict between students and the scientific interpretation of how to solve it (in the classroom); analysis of the components of the pedagogical process based on the video lesson (remotely).

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The reverse transition “practice - theory” can be traced at the time of the micro research on the study and generalization of the experience of professionals and their own teaching experience, due to which the base of pedagogical knowledge is growing and specified. These transitions are carried out continuously during lectures, seminars, independent work in remote mode. 3. At the stage of training-2–telecommunication with students (constant interaction teacher-student, student-teacher using the Internet) using a web-page, e-mail, Skype (and other ways to establish visual contact with the interlocutor), forum (used for discussions); electronic textbooks (with specific tasks); electronic library. The use of opportunities for distance learning allows students to maintain constant communication “teacher-student”, “student-student.” The teacher acts as a tutor who helps the student to determine and implement their own educational route; provides educational and methodological support and solves organizational issues related to the management and quality of mastering the content by students in the learning process. 4. At the final stage the following events were organized: a progress check (tests, control papers and homework); a final check (a credit or an exam in person). Test tasks on the exam should not only assess students’ subject-oriented knowledge, but also reveal the presence of professional skills (development of pedagogical abilities), pedagogical thinking, and pedagogical culture in students. The pedagogical experiment showed positive dynamics in the development of all components of the pedagogical competence among the students of treatment groups (meaningful changes were recorded). At the final (control) stage of the study, the effectiveness of pedagogical conditions for the development of pedagogical competence components was revealed: socialpersonal, motivational, communicative, cognitive, and technological in the conditions of distance learning using the developed criteria.

Table 4. Ability for self-development of the students of the experimental group before and after the formative experiment Ability for self-development

Actively realize their potential in self-development Lack of an established system of self-development Is in the stage of broken-down selfdevelopment

Number of students, %; Form of study Reference Experimental groups groups 83,13 92,7

Significance of differences

p < 0.01

16,87

7,2

p < 0.05

0

0

–

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According to the results of the study (Table 4), it was found out that 92.7% of the students in the experimental group actively realize their potential in self-development. At the same time, 16.87% of the students in the reference group revealed the absence of the existing system of self-development. The analysis of the questionnaires showed that by the end of the first year the students’ activity in self-development issues in the experimental groups, as well as in the reference groups, began to decline, but for the students of the experimental groups, it had recovered by the end of the second year, and by the middle of the third year, it reached maximum values. The reference groups did not fully recover their ability to develop themselves. Table 5. The dynamics of pedagogical skills in the experimental and reference groups Group

Level of pedagogical skills Before the experiment After the experiment Significance Reference 79,4 ± 3.1 80,4 ± 4,1 t  0.01 Experimental 78,34 ± 5.2 89,3 ± 3,7 t  0.02 Significance of differences – 0,017

In the experimental group, a qualitative, reliable growth in the level of pedagogical abilities is observed (Table 5), which indicates the development of pedagogical competence as an ability and willingness to solve pedagogical problems. In the reference group the differences fall within the limits of statistical error and are not reliable. Table 6. Diagnosis of the type of professional motivation of students in reference and experimental groups Type of professional motivation Own work importance Social work value Self-esteem

Indicators, score Reference Experimental groups groups 9,3 9,6 3,5 9,1 8,7 8,9

Student’s t-test p = 0,16 > 0.05 p = 0,004 < 0.05 p = 0,98 > 0.05

According to the results presented in Table 6, it can be concluded that among the students in the experimental and reference groups motives that have a personal egoistic character differ slightly, whereas the social significance of work and the level of motivation to form and develop their own pedagogical competence and pedagogical skills in the educational process increased significantly, which is confirmed by the calculation of the student coefficient. Thus, the introduction of an experimental-analytical model of training of part-time students in the conditions of distance learning has increased the level of the motivational component of the students’ pedagogical competence.

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In order to find out how the communicative skills have changed, the study of the logical and information skills of students in the reference and experimental groups was repeated, because these skills were at the minimum level of development according to the results of the summative stage of the experiment. The diagnostic results are presented in Table 7.

Table 7. Comparison of the level of logical-information communicative skills of students in reference and experimental groups Logical-information communicative skills (a) Information density (b) Volume of information (c) Synonymity (d) Reasoning (e) Feedback (f) Stating a problem (g) Aim (h) Identifying terms, concepts, facts (i) Comparing and contrasting concepts (j) Using different types of reasoning (k) Using transformation techniques (l) identifying main information

Reference groups 4,7 4

Experimental groups 5 5

Significance of differences against Student’s t-test 0,27 > 0,05 0,005 < 0,05

4,5 3,8 4,5 3,8 3,5 4,6

4,8 5 5 5 5 5

0,27 > 0,05 0,025 < 0,05 0,27 > 0,05 0,004 < 0,05 0,012 < 0,05 0,24 > 0,05

3,8

4,8

0,0011 < 0,05

3,6

4,8

0,03 < 0,05

3,8

5

0,02 < 0,05

4,2

5

0,33 > 0,05

It can be seen that all logical-information skills have been developed in the system of experimental and analytical training of part-time students in the conditions of distance learning. Especially reliably improved the skills used by students in microresearch: knowledge of the volume of information (p = 0.005), stating the problem (p = 0.004), ability to set the aims (p = 0.012), analyze and transform information in order to solve a practice-oriented task (p = 0.02), using different types of reasoning (p = 0.03), reasoning (p = 0.025), comparing and contrasting concepts (p = 0.011). Analysis of the results given in Tables 8 and 9 showed that in the experimental groups (third year) the results were better than in the reference groups (not only the third, but even the fourth year). We emphasize that there were no significant differences in the results of all experimental groups. Students from two experimental groups of the natural science faculty (the first of which was trained in the logic of an experimental-analytical model, but without using

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distance learning) according to the results of both tests showed a better result than in the reference group (Table 8).

Table 8. The test results on the pedagogy of students in reference and experimental groups of natural science faculty Level of the pedagogical test

Reference group (R-1/NS)

Experimental groups (E-1/NS)

(E-2/NS)

Competence- Knowledge- Competence- Knowledge- Competence- Knowledgeoriented test oriented test oriented test oriented test oriented test oriented test 4 yEAR

3 yEAR

High Middle Satisfactory Low Below low High Middle Satisfactory Low Below low

30,76 46,15 23,07

7,14 14,28 78,57

15,38 69,24 15,38

42,86 57,14

6,66 26,67 40,00 26,67

6,66 13,33 60,02 13,33 6,66

25,00 45,00 25,00 5,00

15,00 15,00 25,00 45,00

Table 9. The test results on the pedagogy of students of 3rd and 4th year students of the Faculty of History (in % of the number of research participants in this group) Level of the pedagogical test 4 year

3 year

High Middle Satisfactory Low Below low High Middle Satisfactory Low Below low

Reference group (R-2/H) CompetenceKnowledgeoriented test oriented test 8,34 25 33,33 33,33

8,34 16,66 75

Experimental group (E-3/H) CompetenceKnowledgeoriented test oriented test

41,67 33,33 25,00

33,33 66,67

42,86 28,56 14,29 14,29

7,14 7,14 35,72 50,00

In the experimental group E-2/NS, where pedagogy was taught on the basis of the experimental-analytical model of training in the conditions of distance learning, the highest results were demonstrated. In this group, 25% of students according to the results of the competence-oriented test and 15% of students according to the results of the knowledge-oriented test received the maximum points. There are no indicators of the “below low” level. In the experimental group E-3/H, students under similar conditions also demonstrated good results (Table 9).

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Thus, the study showed that experimental and analytical training in the conditions of distance learning does indeed give significantly better results than traditional teaching of part-time students. Answering the questions of the questionnaire about their subjective perception of experimental learning conditions, the students positively assessed that they: had a greater opportunity for individual communication with the teacher (89.79%); received answers to their questions by e-mail (79.59%); could perform independent work at an individual pace (75.51%); mastered computer skills (14.29%); gained skills of independent work with materials on the Internet (51.02%).

5 Conclusions/Recommendations The study confirmed the high potential of interactive collaborative distance learning for students−future teachers in terms of developing their professional pedagogical competence. The implemented system of future teachers training which is based on the ideas of experimental-analytical approach to teaching educational subjects and using interactive collaborative online learning showed better person-oriented and subjectoriented learning outcomes. The pilot study provided the opportunities for the development of communicative competence as well as readiness and ability for professional-research pedagogical performance, continuous professional development, development of individual teaching style, development of pedagogical thinking and mindset, self-analysis of own professional performance, information and media literacy. This study seeks to serve as a stepping stone for future studies to expand the use of interactive collaborative online learning environment for future teacher preparation.

References 1. Moshayeva, G.V.: Massovye online kursy: novy vektor v rasvitii nepreryvnogo obrasovaniya. Onkrytoe i distantsionnoe obrasovanie, № .58, S. 56–65 (2015) 2. Shamova, T.M.: Menegment v upravlenii shkoloi. Pod red. Magistr, Moscow (1992). 230 s. 3. Orlov, A.A., Agafonova, A.S.: Vvedinie v pedagogicheskuyu deyatelnost. Praktikum. Akademia, Moscow, S. 117–122 (2004) 4. Professionalnaya motivatsia. http://dogmon.org/testi-cele-testa-izuchenie-motivov-profession alenoj-deyateleno.html 5. Sokolov, V.M., Zakharova, L.N., Sokolov, V.V., Grebnev, I.V.: Proektirovanie I diagnostika kachestva podgotovki prepodavatelya: monographiya. M.: Issledovatelskii tsentr problem kachestva podgotovki spetsialistov (1994). 160 s. 6. Khalafyan, A.A.: Statistica 6. Statisticheskii analiz dannykh. Binom-Press, Moskva (2010). 52 s.

Analysis of Student Members’ Attitudes on Out-of-Curriculum Science Communication Activities and Resultant Educational Effects Makoto Hasegawa(&) Chitose Institute of Science and Technology, 758-65 Bibi, Chitose, Hokkaido 066-8655, Japan [email protected]

Abstract. The out-of-curriculum project team “Rika-Kobo” organized by university students has actively performed various science communication activities in local community that mainly aim to stimulate interests of children and other generations into various fields of sciences and technologies for over 15 years. The activities of the project team are in out-of-curriculum basis. This means that the student members are not extrinsically motivated, but instead voluntarily involved in the activities. As a result, they are likely to have the same level of motivations and enthusiasms, leading to generally high qualities in the activities. As the supervisor of the activities, the author believes that the out-ofcurriculum situation of the activities is critical for realizing such successful performances. For investigating actual attitudes of the student members towards involvement in the activities, questionnaires were provided in which among other questions, the student members were asked whether or not they were in favor of the situation of incorporating the activities into official education curriculum of the university so that the student members can get credits and/or improve their GPA scores through their participation in the activities. The obtained results showed that the majority of the student members believed that the activities should remain in the out-of-curriculum basis, similarly to the author’s opinion as the supervisor of the activities. Interestingly, the student members in higher grades (in other words, with longer period of experiences in the activities) were likely to be in more strongly favor of the out-of-curriculum situation. Longer period of participation in the activities makes the student members further believe that their intrinsic motivation is a key factor for achieving satisfactory and successful performances and results. Keywords: Project-Based-Learning
PBL
Student program
Science education
Engineering education
Science communication
Career development

1 Introduction Innovation has been strongly required over recent several years in university education as well as other higher-level education. Specifically, instead of traditional classroom style one-way lectures, encouraging students to be actively involved in learning © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 50–59, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_5

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activities has been attempted in various schemes. Among others, Project-BasedLearning (PBL) style activities are becoming very popular, and actually incorporated into educational activities in various ways, as reported in several papers [1–3]. In such typical PBL-style activities, students are required to actively participate in activities so as to find out and/or set a certain goal to be achieved, and to work, often as a team. Preferably, as a results of PBL-style activities, in addition to achievement and enrichment of knowledge, several skills/abilities of students, such as problem-finding or setting, problem-solving, team-working, time-management, leadership, presentation, and negotiation, can be also cultivated. However, some problems often have to be overcome for realizing actually effective PBL activities. One of typical cases will happen when the PBL activities are provided in mandatory classes in an official education curriculum. In such a case, the team members in the PBL activities may not have the same level of motivation, and thus, successful and desirable team-working atmosphere cannot be easily achieved. Even when the PBL activities are provided in non-mandatory classes, similar undesirable situations might happen, for example, when some students take the PBL class because they think it may be easier for them to earn their credits than normal classes. As another problem, when their outcomes at the end of the PBL activities are not so desirable, the students may not be able to achieve successful mental conditions. In order to avoid such situations, re-challenging opportunity should be desirably given. However, this may not be possible when the PBL activities are incorporated into the official education curriculum, that is, conducted in an in-curriculum style. In addition, even from the teachers’ point of views, in-curriculum PBL activities may not be welcome. Specifically, in such a case, performances of each participating students have to be well-observed so as to realize evaluation with sufficient accountability, which is often very difficult or even almost impossible. As one of possible effective ways to avoid such undesirable situations in the PBL activities, the author has been involved in the out-of-curriculum project activities to be performed by a project team “Rika-Kobo” that is organized by university student members [4–9]. This project team has actively performed various activities in local community that mainly aim to stimulate interests of children and other generations into sciences and technologies for over 15 years. The activities of the project team are in the out-of-curriculum basis, which means that the student members are voluntarily involved in. Thus, they are likely to have the same level of motivations and enthusiasms, leading to generally high qualities in the activities. As a result, their activities have been warmly welcome in the local community. The activities of this student project team were already reported previously in which participation experiences into the activities of this student project team are very effective for the student members to achieve and/or improve various skills and abilities such as communication skill, collaboration, leadership, scheduling ability as well as problem finding & solving skill. Their participations can also provide them with desirable opportunities for allowing them to be convinced that certain skills/abilities are required to be achieved and improved. As the supervisor of the activities, the author believes that the out-of-curriculum situation of the activities is critical for realizing such successful performances.

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In this paper, actual attitudes of the student members towards participation and involvement in the activities were investigated through questionnaires. The obtained results showed that the majority of the student members believed that the activities should remain in the out-of-curriculum basis, similarly to the author’s opinion as the supervisor of the activities. In addition, longer period of participation in the activities makes the student members further believe that their intrinsic motivation will be a key factor for realizing high-quality performances and successful results of the activities.

2 Outlines of the Current Activities of the Project Team [9] The originally intended task of the project team was to perform science experiment classes at local schools (elementary and junior-high schools). Since then, the student members of the project team have gradually extended their activities by themselves with only minimum instructions from the author as the project supervisor. In that sense, the activities have been self-disciplined by the student members. Now, the team has actively performed various types of activities each year. The activities currently being performed by the project team can be categorized as follows: (1) Science experiment classes at elementary and junior-high schools: Currently, the project team performs regular science experiment classes for two elementary schools and one junior-high school in the local community. For each of those classes, the student members do necessary preparation works such as preparing original experimental tools and presentation slides. During the class, one member acts as a teacher or an instructor and the others as assistants, as shown in Fig. 1.

(a) Explanation to the whole class

(b) Explanations to each group

Fig. 1. Photos of a typical science experiment class performed in a local elementary school.

(2) Science experiment classes at other educational institutes: Some science museums and other educational institutes request the project team to perform science classes, typically 30–90 min long each. Main target audience is usually children in elementary-school age and their parents, but in some cases, people in elder generations also attend such classes. Similar to the classes at schools, the student

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members do necessary preparation tasks for realizing attractive classes, and perform instructor’s and assistants’ roles. As interesting movements, some of local kindergartens ask the project team to provide their children (3 to 5 years old) with science experiences in a recent few years. Explanations towards children in such ages have to be different from normal ones, for example, in a proper selection of words/phrases. These activities become good challenging opportunities for the student members. (3) Participation to various events: The project team is often invited to participate in various events and perform science demonstration. Those events in general have a wider variety of audiences in their ages as well as in the degrees of their interests in science, and thus, atmospheres of these activities are quite different from those of classes at schools and other educational institutes. In order to make demonstrations more attractive, the student members need to exhibit more talented communication skills. (4) Activities in response to local organizations’ requests: Local organizations also offer requests of participations in their various activities. In order to meet their expectations, the student members are required to organize and perform the best-matched contents of activities. (5) Others: In addition to the activities in the local community, the project team is sometimes asked by the university administration to work for supporting student education in the firstgrade students. In addition, the team is also asked to assist recruitment activities towards high school students. Figure 2 shows the total number of the activities performed by the student project team for each Japanese fiscal year (from April 1 through March 31 of the next year). Significant increase in the number is clearly recognizable.

Fig. 2. The total number of the activities performed by the student project team for each Japanese fiscal year.

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As described in the above, each of these activities is mainly based upon request from various institutes and organizations in the local community, including elementary school, junior high school, science museum and other social education institutes, as well as Parent and Teacher Association of local schools.

3 Results of the Questionnaires and Some Analysis 3.1

Questionnaires for the Student Members

As in the author’s previous reports, some questionnaires were prepared for the student members of the project team to see if any advantageous educational effects are realized or not through their participation experiences in the activities of the project team [5–9]. These questionnaires were provided instead of quantitative and/or statistical analysis on educational effects for the student members to be achieved through their participation in the project activities. The questionnaires in this paper were performed on December of the year 2018, and the number of the student members who responded was 30 in their 1st year to 4th year of participation. In the questionnaires, several skills and abilities were listed up, and the student members were asked to select any skills and abilities in the list that, through participation in the activities of the project team: (i) they thought achieved and/or improved; and (ii) they realized lacking or having but only with insufficient level so that it would be necessary for them to achieve and/or improve. In the responses, they were allowed to pick up skill and abilities without numerical limitation. No specific explanations on definitions and/or meanings of the respective skills/abilities were provided to the student members. In addition, the student members were also asked whether or not they think this kind of activities should be included in the official education curriculum of the university. 3.2

The Obtained Responses on Skills/Abilities

Figure 3(a) shows the results of the student members’ responses on which skills and abilities they thought achieved and/or improved through participation in the activities, and Fig. 3(b) shows the results on those skills and abilities they realized lacking or having but only with insufficient levels. In each of the results, the numbers of percentages of the student members who selected the respective skills/abilities are shown. Basically, the overall response tendencies were quite similar to the previous questionnaires. Specifically, as the skills/abilities they thought obtained or improved, many student members selected communication skill, activity or active attitude (this was intended to indicate whether they have been becoming actively, not passively, involved in the various activities), and presentation skill. With respect to the skills/abilities that the student members selected as lacking or having only with insufficient levels, planning was most likely selected. This is understandable in view of

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(a) skills and abilities that the student members thought achieved and/or improved through their participation in the activities of the project team.

(b) skills and abilities that the student members realized lacking or having only with insufficient levels and need to be improved through their participation in the activities of the project team.

Fig. 3. The responses to the questionnaires from the student members.

the fact that the total number of the activities of this project team per each year reaches over 100 in recent years, as previously shown in Fig. 2. Their responses in general seem reasonable in view of the fact that the student members are always required to work in a small group with close collaboration among each other so as to meet tight schedule while trying to realize sufficient satisfaction of their client as best as they can. In such situations, leadership was also likely to be selected by the student members as one of the skills/abilities which need to be improved. For each of the activity events, a certain member in a small group is required to act as a group leader. During their

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acting as the group leader, especially for their first leadership experience, they are likely to struggle in leading other members with different degrees of the experiences. Moreover, because of the out-of-curriculum basis, the student members will voluntarily participate in the activities, and be kept intrinsically motivated. Such atmospheres among the student members will be important for achieving high-quality of performances leading to satisfactory results. In addition, as the out-of-curriculum PBL activities, the student members are allowed to have repeated experiences over a few years of their participation. Even if their first trial is not successful and/or satisfactory, they are allowed to soon have re-challenging opportunities. Such experiences will be beneficial for realizing development of various skills/abilities among the student members. 3.3

The Students’ Attitudes Towards Possible Incorporation of the Activities into the Official Education Curriculum of the University

Figure 4 shows the results of the student members’ answers, in which 15 out of the 30 students said they opposed the idea to bring the activities into the in-curriculum basis.

Fig. 4. The students’ attitudes towards possible incorporation of the activities into the official education curriculum of the university.

As the specific reasons, they answered that if the activities were incorporated into the official educational curriculum (even if not as mandatory), some students with weak motivation who simply wanted to get some credits and/or improve their GPA scores may come in the activities, leading to deterioration in quality levels of the activities. Thus, the majority of the student members believed that the activities should remain in the out-of-curriculum basis. Some student members also pointed out that although it would be happy if they could get some credits through their participation to the activities, maintaining good atmospheres and high motivation level among the members is much more important.

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Thus, similar to the author’s opinion as the supervisor of the activities, the student members themselves also believed that the fact that the activities are in out-of-curriculum basis is critically important to realize high-quality performances of the activities. More interestingly, as shown in Table 1, the student members in higher grades (in other words, with longer period of participation in the activities) were likely to be in more strongly favor of the out-of-curriculum situation. Table 1. The response tendencies of the student members based on their participation period for each category. 1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year Yes 3 2 0 0 No 4 4 3 4 Difficult to answer 4 3 2 1

3.4

Comparison with the Responses to the Same Question in the Questionnaires Conducted in 2017

Figure 5 shows the results of the student members’ answers to the same question in the similar questionnaires conducted in 2017. The number of the student members who responded was 43.

Fig. 5. The student members’ answers to the same question in the questionnaires in 2017.

Again, the large percentage of the student members responded to the questionnaires in 2017 was also against the idea of incorporating the activities into the in-curriculum basis. Table 2 shows that (although the categorization schemes in Table 2 are slightly different from them in Table 1), similar to the results shown in Table 1 (i.e., in the results for the questionnaires in 2018), the student members with longer period of participation experiences in the activities were likely to be in more favor of the out-ofcurriculum situation.

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Table 2. The response tendencies of the student members based on their participation period for each category for the results shown in Fig. 5. Within 1 year 1 to 2 years Over 2 years Yes 7 1 0 No 9 5 4 Difficult to answer 11 1 5

Thus, longer period of participation and involvement in the activities seems to make the student members further believe that their intrinsic motivation is a key factor for realizing successful and satisfactory performances/results in their activities. Such belief is also important and critical to achieve career development effects (improvements in various skills/abilities of the student members), as mentioned in the above with reference to Fig. 3.

4 Conclusions The student project team “Rika-Kobo” has actively performed various science communication activities, in PBL-style, in local community. In order to satisfactorily motivate student members so as to let them actually participate in PBL-type activities and maintain their motivation levels at a higher level, the out-of-curriculum situation should be considered, rather than forcing the activities to be conducted in the official educational curriculum. In the out-of-curriculum activities, the student members will voluntarily participate in the activities, and be kept intrinsically motivated. Such atmospheres among the student members are important for leading to high-quality of performances and achieving satisfactory results. The questionnaires results in this paper show that after spending several years in the activities, the student members themselves actually realize such advantages of the out-of-curriculum activities. In addition, when PBL activities are performed on the out-of-curriculum basis, the student members are allowed to have repeated experiences over a few years of their participation. Even if their first trial is not successful and/or satisfactory, they are allowed to soon have re-challenging opportunities. Such experiences will be beneficial for realizing development of various skills/abilities among the student members. Thus, more successful interactive educational performances can be realized in the out-of-curriculum situation rather than in the in-curriculum situation.

References 1. Li, K.F., Gebali, F., McGuire, M.: Teaching engineering design in a four-course sequence. In: Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE 2015), Session 3B, pp. 288–293, December 2015 2. Katayama, H., Takezawa, T., Tange, Y.: Education of practical engineering skills aiming for solving real problems related to local area. In: Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE International

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4.

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6. 7.

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Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE 2015), Session 3A, pp. 138–143, December 2015 Reith, D., Haedecke, T., Schulz, E., Langel, L., Gemein, L., Grob, I.: The BRSU race academy: a tutored peer-teaching learning approach. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL 2016), Session 6C, pp. 584–591, September 2016 Hasegawa, M.: Physics and science education through project activities of university students and regional collaboration. In: JPS Conference Proceedings, vol. 1, pp. 017016-1–017016-4 (2014). (12th Asia Pacific Physics Conference (APPC 2012), no.F-PTu-1, July 2013) Hasegawa, M.: Roles and effects of activities of a student project team in engineering education for university students in lower grades. In: Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE 2013), no. 140, pp. 87–90, August 2013 Hasegawa, M.: New education scheme for college students through out-of-curriculum project activities. Int. J. Mod. Educa. Forum (IJMEF) 4(3), 120–123 (2014) Hasegawa, M.: Case study on educational effects for university students of their out-ofcurriculum project activities. In: Proceedings of the 2015 2nd International Conference on Educational Reform and Modern Management (ERMM 2015), no. ERMM2015-E040, pp. 205–208, April 2015 Hasegawa, M.: Engineering educational effects for undergraduate students through out-ofcurriculum. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE 2016), no. 90064, July 2016 Hasegawa, M.: Educational effects for university students through multiple-years participation in out-of-curriculum project activities. In: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL 2017), pp. 110–120, September 2017

Mobile Apps (EnglishListening and 6 Minutes English) and the Listening Skill Valeria Mendoza, Ana Vera-de la Torre(&), and Cristina Páez-Quinde Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y de la Educación, Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador [email protected]

Abstract. Mobile technology has notably taken on an important role in the educational field. There are wide range of resources that are available to improve different skills in certain areas that we do not know yet. The main aim of this study is to determine the influence of the EnglishListening and 6 Minute English mobile applications in the development of listening comprehension. The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the mobile apps through the improvement of students’ listening skill after two months of using the mobile apps and to determine student’s acceptance of mobile technology as a methodology for learning English and developing the listening skill. The study is developed at the Unidad Educativa Prócer Manuel Quiroga in Santo Domingo City, in Ecuador, with 63 students from the 3rd year of baccalaureate. Thirty-three students were part of the experimental group and thirty students were part of the controlled group. To collect the information, the researcher uses standardized Pre-test and Post-Test. All the obtained data is analyzed through the Wilcoxon test, in which we obtained results that showed that EnglishListening and 6 Minute English mobile applications had 95% positive effects in the development of the listening comprehension. Finally, it concludes that EnglishListening and 6 Minute English are two mobile applications that can be trusted by teachers and used to develop listening comprehension in students. These applications provide a great variety of interactive, innovative and educational activities to manage listening. Their systems are reliable and contain truthful information to be imparted in a class. Based on the results this research suggests that teachers should apply the EnglishListening and 6 Minute English mobile applications in order to develop listening comprehension in English as foreign language. These apps deliver multiple and great benefits to students because of their innovation, contents, methodology, interest and interaction. Keywords: Mobile apps
EnglishListening and 6 Minute English
Listening skill

1 Introduction The development of language is one of the fundamental objectives of education, since it is the main tool through which the human being builds and understands the world that surrounds him and enters into dialogue with himself and with others. Language is the form our thoughts take; it relates us to others and makes us part of a cultural © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 60–66, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_6

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community [1]. As is evidenced, one of the more difficult skills to develop is the listening skill. Listening is an invisible mental process, which makes it difficult to describe. People who listen must discriminate between different sounds, understand the vocabulary and the different grammatical structures, interpret the emphasis and message, and retain and interpret all of that both within the immediate context and of a broader sociocultural context. Digital technology has been a phenomenon that is immersed in various aspects of human society. Many people work, use and live with it, and many others try to give an explanation for it and how it came to be. But what is certain is that technology has changed many situations and has revolutionized this globalized world with all the facilities now to find any kind of information or get in contact with somebody even if the person is on the other side of the world. As previously mentioned, digital technology has different important effects in areas such as industry, politics, economics and social life [2]. Education is no exception. Digital technology plays an important role in providing innovative methodologies at the moment of teaching. The curricular integration of the NICTs (The New Information and Communication Technologies) implies using technology with honesty, using technology to facilitate knowledge, using technology in the classroom, integrating technology as part of the curriculum, and using in the form of educational software to teach [3].

2 State of the Art The English language has been recognized as a business and travel language. A study published by The Babbel Magazine showed that about 1.5 billion people speak this language, meaning 20% of the Earth’s population [4]. English has clearly served as a language of wider communication in many pluralistic contexts, and in many multilingual countries. This language has served as lingua franca providing wider communication capacity throughout the entire world. Latin American countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay are carrying out important efforts to improve their competitiveness and prospects for economic development. These represent some of their main challenges, and English proficiency is included as one of those efforts [5]. Ecuador established the study of English as a foreign language in 1992 [6], making agreements with the British Council and making some changes in its curriculum. From there, Ecuador has been working hard to improve its quality of education, especially in English, due to the importance of this language in the entire world. According to reference [7] learning English provides the opportunity to be successful in national and international contexts, which is why it should be studied with the most innovative tools. The aim of this investigation is to establish the effectiveness of the use of the mobile applications EnglishListening and 6 Minute English in listening comprehension in students who are learning English. Education is an essential part of the human being, but when the word “education” is heard, people usually think of a traditional class with the students paying attention and the teacher lecturing the class. Nowadays this concept has totally changed. Learning is no longer just developed in the class; new methods are not confined to classrooms, especially methods that convey independent learning. [8] Education

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nowadays is not just about teaching methods because thanks to digital technology we have other tools like different kinds of apps. The English Listening app presents a 1.1.0 version, whose last update was made on October 25th, 2018. This app has more than 100.000 million downloads and is offered by the TalkEnglish enterprise, which is dedicated to educational objectives. EnglishListening is an application that intends to develop the listening skill in students that are learning the English language. It has 6 different types of listening lessons such as: fill in the blanks listening lessons, “What is in the picture?” listening lessons, listening to famous quotes, short passages listening lessons, sentence and long paragraph dictation. Inside every big lesson there are 30 mini lessons according to the general topic, being 180 lessons in total. ESL instructors with Master’s degree in TESOL created each lesson. The audio files had been recorded in with high-quality studio equipment and professional voice talents. One more important aspect about the apps used for this investigation is that the content rating is “Available for Everyone” without restriction because of the age of the user. The lessons are designed for 6 types of users: beginners, intermediate and advanced English learners—each one with 2 sublevels. It is important to mention that an internet connection is necessary to run the application. [9] The EnglishListening application’s first lesson is named “Fill in the Blanks.” Here students listen to the audio and complete spaces with the given words. This exercise is part of the lesson correspondent to beginners I. The aim has been to create funny lessons, as if it were a game. After any of the lessons are done, points are assigned according to their degree of difficulty. The minimum score is 5 points and the maximum score is 20 points; it is also qualified according to the development that was obtained during the activities. For example, in lesson number 1, if the participant listens once and responds correctly, he will get 5 points, if he listens twice he will get 3 points, and if he listens 3 or more times he will get only 1 point [9]. [8] This reference establishes that mobile learning provides a wide variety of benefits, and that students can study and learn any time they have time, and also that nowadays networking technology is available in most places, allowing successful access. Among the uses and benefits that appear in the application are that people who run the app tend to sharpen their auditory system. Also, people who are learning English get a lot of vocabulary and the correct pronunciation of words, because when they listen in a correct way, since the very beginning they begin to get accustomed to it. Furthermore, the users of it testify that the application has been helpful in their concentration due to the quality of the audio they use, the procedure and the practicality of running it. Finally, another of the contributions of users is that the application is very friendly and simple when using it. To sum up, the EnglishListening mobile application is an application that has been recommended by thousands of users, who have given a positive review on the application for the different benefits and uses that it has granted, making it possible to obtain an improvement in listening comprehension of those who have used it. According to reference, [10] mobile apps are an integral part of the smartphone experience, the growing base of smartphone users leads to more apps being developed to serve a wider and wider range of consumer needs, so the students are always in contact with the app. On the other hand, the 6 Minute English app presents a 2.5.0 version, whose last update was made on September 19th, 2018. This app has more than 500 million downloads and is offered by the Education Apps enterprise. This application belongs to

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the English Conversations from BBC Learning English Program. It contains a very big variety of lessons that are presented in an interactive conversation. Even though 6 Minute English’s objective is to develop the listening skill, it also contains spaces that focus on learning vocabulary and grammar. The audios presented in this app are interesting topics about education, science, history, and geography, among others—meaning that this app provides authentic audios. At the end of the conversations, the interlocutors make an explanation of the new words that were said during the audio [9]. One advantage of the app is that it offers two listening modes: Online (connected to, served by, or available through a system and especially a computer or telecommunications system, such as the Internet) and Offline (not connected to or served by a system and especially a computer or telecommunications system) [11]. This app offers both a mobile version and a desktop version with the same content. In case one does not have a speaker to play the audios, one may have access to the transcript and read it. This is another advantage of this app: that students can listen and read the transcript at the same time. Reference [12] principal objective is to identify the relationship between the use of the Duolingo application and the development of vocabulary skills. To achieve the purpose of this research, quantity and qualitative method as well as data collection were used. As a conclusion the author stated that the Duolingo app was very useful in the development of students “vocabulary, due to its suitable and meaningful activities” [13]. The main objective of this research is to determine whether the use of Podcasts and mobile learning improves listening skills in students. This work concluded that Podcasts have positive effects in the process of learning English, especially in listening comprehension. They also motivate students to listen in a more interactive and innovative method. [14] This reference identifies the effectiveness of using mobile devices in learning English as foreign language. This article worked with three instruments: interviews, questionnaires and observations. The established results indicated that in general those students had positive effects and benefits from the mobile learning. They had opportunities to learn in multimedia classrooms, get access to the internet and use their devices in different contexts, not just in the classroom. [15] This position attempts to reveal the multiple benefits of the use of mobile devices, such as: innovation, platforms, support and interaction. This study was applied in Malaysia and used empirical evidence, by means of self-administrated questionnaires and analyzing the data through a structural equations approach. Mobile devices are gratefully accepted by students to learn the Kadazandusun language and its influences in the time of acquiring the language effectively. According to this it is obvious that using a mobile app helps students to develop their language skills. It is relevant to apply new methods that can contribute to language skills development, aside from the traditional ones. [16] This reference proposes the use of an iPhone, comparing the effectiveness of satisfaction between two methodologies at the moment of teaching: one with the use of an iPhone and the other in the traditional way. Children had a significant learning experience using the iPhone method, because students were very motivated to learn. This method helps students not only to communicate in the target language but also to use the language in real-life aspects.

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[17] This author highlights the effects of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) in listening skills. After using the application, the results showed that Mobile Assisted Language Learning can improve the listening skill effectively. This study determines the specific improvement that the listening skill has when taught by mobile applications. The listening process is not a simple process; rather, it requires practice, motivation and interaction. The use of this methodology makes students manage this skill in efficient and innovative means. The implementation of these kinds of apps fosters students’ listening practice because in each stage of this process students are required to be in contact with the target language through novel vocabulary and practice it with their classmates and consequently develop their abilities to listen and speak appropriately.

3 Methodology This study consisted of an experimental research in which the influence of the EnglishListening and the 6 Minute English mobile apps on the listening skills is detemined. This research was conducted on 63 students at 3rd year of baccalaureate who belong to the Unidad Educativa Prócer Manuel Quiroga. The study was conducted for 5 h a week. At the beginning of the process, students took a standardized pre-test that intended to evaluate the level of the listening skill of this group before applying the EnglishListening and the 6 Minute English mobile apps. Teachers from this institution took a survey to determine the use of mobile apps in the listening skill (Table 1 and Fig. 1). Table 1. Teachers’ survey: mobile applications in listening skill Frequency Always Sometimes Rarely Never Total

Teachers Percentage 0 0% 0 0% 1 20% 4 80% 5 100%

Fig. 1. Mobile applications in listening skill

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According to the obtained results, 80% of the correspondents to 4 teachers answered that they never use mobile applications to develop the listening skill comprehension with their students. The other 20% said that the rarely use those kinds of applications. It is worrisome because the students are not receiving classes with innovative methods and strategies. Also, the listening skill has lost its importance in the process of learning a foreign language. There is not enough knowledge, spaces and materials to develop this skill efficiently. Taking into account the results obtained in the Pre-test and the Post Test, the Wilcoxon test is applied to get a deep analysis of the applied methodology at Unidad Educativa Prócer Manuel Quiroga, with students from 3rd year of baccalaureate, in order to develop the listening skill comprehension through the use of mobile applications (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Wilcoxon signed ranks test

At first positive and negative ranks are shown. There are 7 negative ranks and 46 positive ranks. The total number is 63.

Fig. 3. Listening skill pre- post-test

The Fig. 3 shows the reason value Z, and the significance value. In this case the significance value is −5,726. The Wilcoxon test establishes in its theory that, if the significance value is less than 0.005 the null hypothesis must be declined as in this case. So, the significance shows a total of 0.000; it is less than 0.5, giving a 95% of rejection to the null hypothesis.

4 Conclusions EnglishListening and 6 Minute English are two mobile applications that can be trusted by teachers and be used to develop listening comprehension in students. These applications provide a great variety of interactive, innovative and educational activities to practice listening. Their systems are reliable and contain truthful information to be

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imparted in a class. Students from 3rd year of baccalaureate showed a great acceptance of the mentioned mobile applications. It was clearly established that listening skills at the Unidad Educativa Prócer Manuel Quiroga were being developed in traditional methods and that students did not have much practice in all the skills, especially in listening, due to the lack of resources. Considering those aspects, EnglishListening and 6 Minute English had positive effects in the development of listening comprehension. Their structure, methodology, and resources were very catching to students and they learned the language effectively. These elements made student and teacher alike feel comfortable and motivated to develop the listening skill. Technology has been used before to teach English, but EnglishListening and 6 Minute English are new digital entries that help to improve the listening skills of English learners.

References 1. Irzsa: Prácticas sociales del lenguaje. Habilidades lingüísticas. Escuchar, hablar, leer y escribir, 09 June 2012. https://irzsa.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/habilidades-linguisticasescucharhablar-leer-y-escribir/ 2. Finardi, K.R., Prebianca, G.V., Momm, C.F.: Tecnologia na Educação: o caso da Internet e do Inglês como Linguagens de Inclusão. Cadernos 46, 193–208 (2013) 3. Sánchez, J.: Integración Curricular de las TICs: Coceptos e Ideas. In: Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación (2018) 4. Lyons, D.: Babbel Magazine, 26 July 2017. https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/howmany-people-speak-english-and-where-is-it-spoken 5. Cronquist, K., Fiszbein, A.: English Language Learning in Latin America, Latin America (2017) 6. British Council: English in Ecuador, Ecuador (2015) 7. Chacón, R.: El aprendizaje de idiomas mediante MOOCs, VI Jornadas de Redes de Investigación en Innovación docente de la UNED (2014) 8. Nadire, C., Mohammad, M.: Mobile system for flexible education. Science Direct (2018) 9. Google Play Store: TalkEnglish, 15 October 2018. https://play.google.com/store/apps/ details?id=com.talkenglish.listening&hl=en_US 10. Sang, C., Doyle, Y., Eun, K.: Antecedents of mobile app usage among smartphone users. J. Mark. Commun., 20 (2014) 11. Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Online and Offline Definitions (2018) 12. Francis, P.: The Duolingo App and the Development of Vocabulary Skills in Students of Ninth-Grade Level of Elementary School at Unidad Educativa Ambato, Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato (2017) 13. Ortiz, A.: Uso e implementación de la herramienta Vodcast para el desarrollo de la destreza del Listening, Quito (2017) 14. Dashtestani, R.: Moving bravely towards mobile learning: Iranian students’ use of mobile devices for learning English as a foreign language, 20 (2015) 15. Pindeh, N., Mohd, N., Mohd, N.: User acceptance on mobile apps as an effective medium to learn Kadazandusun language. Procedia Econ. Financ. 37, 372–378 (2016) 16. Furió, D., Seguít, I., Vivó, R.: Mobile learning vs. traditional classroom lessons: a comparative study, J. Comput. Assist. Learn., 13 (2014) 17. Kim, H.S.: Emerging Mobile Apps to Improve English Listening Skills. Seoul Women’s University, p. 20 (2011)

Infret: Enhancing a Tool for Explorative Learning of Information Retrieval Concepts Aleksandar Bobić1(&), Christopher Cheong2, Justin Filippou3, France Cheong2, and Christian Guetl1 1

Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria [email protected], [email protected] 2 RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia {christopher.cheong,france.cheong}@rmit.edu.au 3 University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia [email protected]

Abstract. To help students better understand abstract information retrieval (IR) concepts and encourage students to explore new concepts, an existing Webbased IR tool called Infret was enhanced. Based on the feedback from a previous evaluation, the need for additional IR concepts and user tracking functionality was identified. The expanded Infret version was evaluated in a class of experienced students who were studying an information search and retrieval course and a class of novice students who were studying a database design and development course. Both groups were working in different learning environments and were given two similar text statistics-based learning activities and four term weighting-based learning activities. At the end of the activities, both groups completed a multi-part survey. The results indicate that the novice students were more inclined to explore unrelated IR concepts after using Infret. Additionally, both groups agreed that exploring the concepts using visualisations helped them more than just calculating the formulae manually. Furthermore, the results show that Infret successfully helps students understand concepts of text statistics and term weighting and was seen as useful by most students. The average system usability score (SUS) for the experienced students was 69.8 and for novice students 57.7. These results indicate that Infret supports exploration and helps students get a better understanding of concepts, however, further improvements are required. Keywords: Information retrieval
Active learning tool
Web-based learning
Explorative learning


Interactive visualisation

1 Introduction Numerous studies have identified that students have issues keeping focus, retaining knowledge and understanding abstract concepts in face-to-face settings [5, 6]. Multiple pedagogic approaches such as active learning [8], Technology Enabled Active This work was carried out while Justin Filippou was employed by RMIT University. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 67–78, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_7

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Learning [9] (TEAL) and Motivational Active Learning [10] (MAL) attempt to address the aforementioned issues. To offer an interactive experience in a MAL setting, a prototype tool for explorative learning of information retrieval (IR) concepts called Infret was built and evaluated [4]. The evaluation results indicate that Infret successfully helps students understand concepts of text statistics. In this paper, we focus on the expansion and evaluation of Infret with features and improvements based on the feedback received from the first version to provide a better learning experience for students and support them in understanding more concepts of IR. Section 2 introduces the background and related work which motivated the development and expansion of Infret. The requirements for the Infret extension and the extended architecture and UI are presented in Sect. 3. Section 4 explains the evaluation process and discusses the results. Finally, Sect. 5 summarises the work and findings and discusses possible future improvements.

2 Background and Related Work 2.1

Selected Learning and Teaching Approaches

Studies have identified that students have trouble remembering knowledge learned in face-to-face settings, understanding abstract ideas and focusing for long periods of time [5, 6]. An example of a subject with many conceptual ideas is IR where students need support exploring the concepts taught in class. Learning is described as a process of gaining experience through exploration by exploratory learning [7]. A method that attempts to address the issue of focus loss is active learning which uses active engagement of students during class [8]. Approaches such as TEAL [9] and MAL [10] further expand the concept of active learning to address issues such as low knowledge retention, understanding of abstract concepts and helping students accept these new approaches. After using MAL in an information search and retrieval (ISR) course for multiple years it has been concluded there was a need for an interactive IR tool which facilitates the exploration of IR concepts. 2.2

Related Work

The Infret prototype was developed to support a MAL-based course with an interactive visual and experimentation component for IR [4]. To offer accessibility from multiple devices and operating systems it was built with web technologies such as Angular1 and Node.js2. The prototype enables users to administer text statistics concepts on a selected text collection and explore the results in the form of bar charts, line charts and tables. The Infret evaluation indicates that it successfully helped students understand text statistics concepts. Among the features students liked the most were the interactive user interface (UI), visualisations and the representation of the data. Potential improvements 1 2

https://angular.io/. https://nodejs.org/en/.

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such as the introduction of formulae explanations, expansion to other areas of IR and UI interactivity improvements were identified. Furthermore, user behaviour and insights in usage patterns should be investigated. An extended review of the aforementioned topics and related work can be found in the initial Infret paper [4].

3 Application Design and Architecture Extension 3.1

Requirements and Extended Architecture

In this research, we aim to extend the first version of the Infret prototype by developing extensions and improvements based on findings reported in [4]. In particular, the goal of these extensions is to: • • • • • • •

Provide multiple term weighting concepts Provide interactive visualisations for term weighting concepts Track user activity Offer in-app user support Enable viewing of text collections document content Improve interaction with the side panel Provide better support for smaller screens

To fulfil these requirements, the simplified architecture of the Infret prototype was extended with new components (black and dark grey blocks in Fig. 1) and functionality (bold underlined text in Fig. 1). To provide users with term weighting concepts, the internal representation of the selected text collection is read from the data storage, the term frequency (TF) weights are calculated in the weighting component and then cached in the data storage. Additionally, the weighting component calculates the Inverse Document Frequency (IDF), reads the TF weight values from the data storage and calculates the Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) weights. The term weighting values are then sent to the client. To provide interactive visualisations for term weighting, the client visualises TF and TF-IDF weights with a heatmap and IDF with a bar chart and a table. The side panel is extended with an activity selector which enables users to switch between text statistics and term weighting. Furthermore, it contains a weighting formula selector for term weighting due to a large number of possible formulae for term weights. To track user activity Infret generates an anonymised universally unique identifier (UUID) on the client to differentiate between users. It sends user interaction data (tracking consent, time of action, action target, action value and action type) together with the UUID to the tracking component. The data is then parsed by the tracking parser and stored into the data store and separate user specific files. The help component aims to make various UI elements easier to understand by providing tooltips with explanations of UI elements which are displayed when students hover over UI elements. Additionally, help is provided using modal windows with explanations for different formulae, thereby offering in-app support to the users.

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Fig. 1. Updated Infret architecture (extended after [4]). The black squares and underlined bold text represent newly added components or functionality respectively. The component connections are displayed as arrows and the text next to them represents the data being sent through them. The blue text represents the main technology used and the “…” represents possible extensions in a component.

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Extended UI Structure and Features

To provide students with term weighting functionality and better user experience, the extended Infret prototype includes new features and a redesigned UI which can be seen in Fig. 2. The sidebar (C) for selecting IR concepts and controlling the visualisations is organised with top-down interaction in mind, where the user first selects a text collection, then an activity which can be either text statistics or term weighting and finally runs the analysis by pressing the “Analyze” button. Students are also provided with detailed controls and help buttons marked with a question mark. The help buttons open a modal window which contains detailed formula and concept explanations. Infret displays tooltips (D) when a user hovers over a UI element. To visualise the term weighting data the new version of Infret includes a heatmap component (A) which represents larger weights with warm colours and smaller weights with cold colours. To declutter results the heatmap provides stop word removal functionality. Each column of the heatmap represents a term and each row represents a document. It also includes pagination controls (B) for easier navigation through the results. Additionally, a user can click on one of the document identifiers (E) in the first column of the heatmap to view the content of a document in a modal window. Furthermore, the entire UI is adapted to support smaller screens and the side-panel includes multiple smaller improvements such as an improved slider element and colours of elements for better user interaction with it.

Fig. 2. Infret user interface with the heatmap component.

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4 Evaluation 4.1

Study Design

To evaluate how Infret helps students with different levels of prior knowledge understand IR concepts (such as text statistics and term weighting), we provided two different postgraduate student groups with six learning activities using Infret to actively explore and understand selected IR concepts. All the activities, except for one, were the same for both groups of students. Additionally, we want to evaluate how the new features and the new UI layout affect the overall student experience while using Infret and the perceived helpfulness of Infret. Furthermore, we want to compare the results of this evaluation to the initial Infret prototype evaluation results [4]. In preparation for the learning activities, students first get brief textual instructions on what concept to explore in Infret as well as task descriptions and related questions to be solved by interacting with Infret. One group is a small group of experienced students, while the other group is a large novice group. The students are recruited from two separate courses and have different levels of prior knowledge in order to get a better insight into how Infret helps students with different levels of prior knowledge. In addition, the activities for the experienced students were more demanding as the goal of their exercises is to apply and extend their existing knowledge, while the goal for the novice group was for them to be introduced to the basic concepts of IR. At the beginning of the learning activity, both groups of students receive an introduction to the basics of text statistics concepts which they must apply to a preselected text document collection using Infret. Once they understand these basic concepts, the activities build on that knowledge with the introduction of various term weighting concepts within Infret. Once the analysis tasks are completed, they are asked to investigate the data and answer questions relating to that data or to the concepts being explored. In addition, the experienced students are asked to administer formulae learned during their course using Python or Excel for a calculation task and report their results and findings. Both groups of students are provided with an online survey once they complete the activities. The survey consists of demographic data, general feedback questions, questions from the System Usability Scale (SUS) [2] and questions from the Computer Emotion Scale (CES) [3]. Finally, the survey responses are analysed to address the aims of our study. 4.2

Setting and Instrument

The six activities provided to the two student groups cover selected IR concepts and are mostly the same for both groups. The students are instructed to select a text collection, apply certain text analysis tasks on the collection and investigate the results in Infret. The learning activity focus and the target groups of activities are outlined in Table 1.

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Table 1. Activity focus and target group. Activity number Learning activity focus 1 Letter distribution 2.1 Number of distinct words 2.2 Word distribution 3 Word distribution 4 IDF 5 TF/TF-IDF weights 6 Term weighting reflection

Target group Experienced/Novice Novice Experienced Experienced/Novice Experienced/Novice Experienced/Novice Experienced/Novice

Due to the difference in the level of experience between the two groups one of the activities was designed differently for both groups. Thus, activity 2.1 in Table 1 instructs the novice students to compare the number of words in the vocabulary (collection of all unique words from the selected text collection) with the number of words in the entire collection and describe their findings. Alternatively, activity 2.2 in Table 1 asks the experienced students to first document the word distribution of the first 40 words in a table. It then instructs them to apply a formula combining the word rank and the word percentage in the entire text collection and plot it. Finally, it asks them to apply two formulae presented during the ISR course and adjust their parameters by using the least squares method. In addition to the prior knowledge difference, the learning settings of the two groups differed as well. The novice group’s work was not graded, and they were guided through the usage of Infret by a lecturer. The lecturer presented Infret by briefly explaining each activity and demonstrating how to navigate the system to help students get started with the activity. Students had approximately 10 min to work on each activity. At the end of the allotted time for the activity, the instructor summarised the main goal and findings. The group had approximately two hours to interact with Infret and complete the activities. The main expectation for this group was to explore and learn new concepts and interact with Infret. The activity for the experienced group’s work was included as part of the grading. This group was not guided, and students had one week to complete the activities. In addition, the experienced group was required to complete calculation tasks using formulae taught during the course on ISR. Once they completed the activities, they had to submit the answers and findings. The goal of this group was to get a deeper understanding of learned concepts. When both groups of students completed the activities, they filled out an anonymous online survey, which is composed of 6 sections. The same questionnaire was used for both groups and its structure is presented in Table 2. The first and second sections are demographics questions and prior knowledge questions respectively. The third section is a collection of questions focusing on how Infret helps students understand the aforementioned areas of IR. The System Usability Scale (SUS) [2] questionnaire (Sect. 4 of the questionnaire) is used to evaluate Infret’s usability. The final score is calculated using a formula provided by the author of SUS and should be compared to the previous score of Infret reported in [4] to identify if the

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usability improved. To measure emotions experienced by students while using Infret, Sect. 5 of the questionnaire contained the twelve questions from the Computer Emotion Scale (CES) [3]. The survey concludes with a collection of general feedback questions. Table 2. Questionnaire structure. Section 1 2 3 4 5 6

4.3

Section topic Demographics questions Prior knowledge questions Questions to determine how Infret helps students understand specific areas of IR in accordance with the learning tasks outlined in Table 1 System usability scale Computer emotion scale General feedback questions

Study Participants

The novice group consisted of 56 participants who completed the activities and the survey, having been recruited from the postgraduate database design and development course at RMIT University in Melbourne in the first semester of 2019. The majority (71.4%) of the students in this group are enrolled in a Master’s program in Business Information Technology. 37.5% of the students are female and 62.5% male. Additionally, the majority (62.5%) of the students are between 18 and 24 years old. The group undertook the activities at the start of the semester and most students did not have prior experience in IR. This indicates that this group was learning new concepts in IR. The experienced group of students who completed the activities and the survey had 22 participants and was recruited from the postgraduate ISR course at the Graz University of Technology in the winter semester of the school year 2018/2019. The majority (77.3%) of participants in this group are enrolled in a Master’s program in Computer Science. 40.9% of the students in this group are female and 59.1% are male. Furthermore, the majority (54.5%) of the students are between 25 and 34 years old. Students in this group carried out the activities at the end of the semester and already had knowledge of IR topics. Therefore, they were expanding their existing knowledge of IR concepts. A detailed comparison of the two groups can be seen in Table 3. Students were asked to estimate their prior knowledge by selecting the knowledge level out of the four choices scored from 1 to 4 for several concepts: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Never heard of them or heard of them but don’t know what they are. I have an idea of what they are but don’t know where or when to use them. Can explain what they are but never used them. Can explain what they are and used them before.

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Based on the selected choices the mean prior knowledge (PK) and standard deviation for all student groups are calculated where a mean of 1 implies the entire group has on average no prior knowledge about the topic and 4 implies the group has prior knowledge on the topic. Table 3. Comparison of the two participant groups. Property Filled out survey Females Males 18–24 years old 25–34 years old 35–44 years old PK in text statistics PK in basic statistics PK in term weighting approaches PK in basic data analysis

Novice students 56 21 (37.5%) students 35 (62.5%) students 35 (62.5%) students 20 (35.7%) students 1 (1.8%) student Mean: 2.36 SD: 0.98 Mean: 2.86 SD: 1.14 Mean: 2.05 SD: 1.03 Mean: 2.71 SD: 1.09

Experienced students 22 9 (40.9%) students 13 (59.1%) students 8 (36.4%) students 12 (54.5%) students 2 (9.1%) students Mean: 2.8 SD: 0.91 Mean: 3.5 SD: 0.73 Mean: 2.8 SD: 1.02 Mean: 3.18 SD: 0.85

The majority (72%) of experienced students can explain the concepts of text statistics and are familiar with them (knowledge level 3 or 4) and only 1 (4.5%) never heard of them. Most of them can also explain (knowledge level 3 or 4) concepts of basic statistics (86.4%) and basic data analysis (72.7%) while all of them at least have an idea of what these concepts are. Finally, 54% of the students are familiar (knowledge level 3 or 4) with term weighting approaches and 2 (9.1%) have no prior knowledge regarding these topics. On the other hand, a minority (35.7%) of novice students have prior knowledge in text statistics (knowledge level 3 or 4) and can explain the concepts while 10 (17.85%) have no prior knowledge. Additionally, the majority (60%) of the novice students have prior knowledge (knowledge level 3 or 4) of basic statistics and approximately half of them (51.8%) have prior knowledge in basic data analysis. However, 16.1% have no prior knowledge of basic statistics and 14.3% have no prior knowledge of basic data analysis. Finally, 33.9% of the students can explain (knowledge level 3 or 4) concepts of term weighting approaches while 39.3% have no prior knowledge in term weighting approaches. By inspecting the values in Table 3, it might seem that the two groups are very close with regard to prior knowledge. However, on closer inspection, it can be noticed that the novice group has substantially more students with no prior knowledge in the selected topics. 4.4

Findings and Discussion

The majority of students from the novice (82%) and experienced (86%) groups like experiments and hands-on activities. In addition, the majority from both groups

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(novice: 76%, experienced: 86%) agree that e-learning tools help them learn course content better. 69% of novice and 63% of experienced students had previous experience with using interactive simulations for learning concepts in class. Additionally, novice students prefer having complete knowledge of the theory before exploring data while the experienced students do not have a clear preference. This indicates that in order for novice students to feel comfortable using an e-learning tool they should have some knowledge about the topic they will be exploring. On average more than two-thirds of students in the novice group and approximately half of the experienced students agreed that Infret helped them understand concepts of text statistics, TF and TF-IDF weights and IDF. In addition, a majority (73%) of the novice students found the formula explanations in Infret helpful while completing their activities. This further supports the conclusion that novice students need more support when using Infret for the first time. Additionally, the results indicate that Infret fulfils its purpose of helping students understand IR concepts. Even though Infret’s UI and features did not change while being used by the two student groups the SUS scores differed by a lot. The experienced group rated Infret with a mean SUS score of 69.8 (SD = 11.7). This score is above the average score of 68 [1] but lower than the score of 76.9 reported in [4]. This drop could be caused by the addition of new features and the increase of UI complexity. On the other hand, the novice group rated the usability of Infret with a mean score of 57.7 (SD = 12). This score is much lower than the average and the Infret prototype score. The large difference between the novice and the experienced groups’ scores could be explained by a variety of differences in the learning settings of the two groups. The novice group had a much shorter time of interaction with Infret; they were in a class environment and were guided by an instructor. This supports the previously mentioned conclusion that novice students need more assistance while using Infret. In addition, this leads to the conclusion that greater focus should be placed on the user experience (UX) of Infret in the future, especially for novice students. Despite the drop in the usability score, the majority of students found Infret useful (novice: 84%, experienced 82%), think that it makes learning theory more interesting (novice: 84%, experienced 77%) and would like to use such a tool for other subjects in IR (novice: 79%, experienced 59%). They also agreed that exploring formulas using visualisations helped them understand better than just calculating formulas on paper. Most (82%) of the novice students agreed that they are curious about other IR concepts that they have not learned yet. In addition, 77% of them would like to learn more about IR. On the other hand, experienced students had no clear preference. It can be concluded that Infret sparks novice students’ interest in the IR field and make the experience of learning more interesting for all students. When asked in which other areas of ISR they would like to use Infret students mentioned search engines, document ranking models and more. In addition, they mentioned knowledge graphs, data mining, database design, statistics as some of the subjects where Infret could be used. Students liked the performance, visualisations and intuitive and appealing UI of Infret: “Very intuitive. Apealing [sic] GUI”, “I liked the visualization [sic] of the data a lot, charts, heat maps etc.”, “In general the tool helped me understand the concepts.”, “The given example of practical usage giving more motivation to work/learn in this field”. Even though the SUS score indicates that the

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usability dropped, this feedback indicates to some extent that the students are satisfied with the general usability and user interface elements. Even though they liked a lot of aspects of Infret they also expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of export options for data, lack of search function, lack of support for copying data from some parts of the UI and more: “Results cannot be processed well: No export, no easy handling to copy data, no filtering, no search”, “heatmap was a little inconvenient”. In addition, students also recommended improvements such as the addition of a search function, data highlight option, presentation of the possibility of viewing formula explanations in a clearer manner and more: “insert a search function [sic]. sometimes there are too much [sic] values and that’s confusing”, “Better structuring of the input and make it more intuitive. I did not realize that I would have had the chance to view the formulas [sic]”, “loading of charts and heatmaps for specific words - easier to see needed results without endless scrolling and searching among other terms”, “highlight a particular data or combination of data”. The provided feedback such as the addition of a search and filter options, UI improvements and introduction of new areas such as search engines will be used for further development of Infret. In addition, this paragraph indicates that SUS results must be interpreted carefully. It seems that the biggest issues for most students were the lack of features and not the general usability of Infret. In conclusion, Infret was well received by both groups of students and helped them gain new knowledge in IR. It achieved its goal of helping students better understand aspects of text statistics and term weighting. However, there are still improvements needed to fully support novice students with no or little prior knowledge of IR concepts. In addition, many new possible improvements have been identified and will be considered for further development of Infret.

5 Summary and Future Work In this paper, we describe enhancements and evaluate of Infret, a tool for explorative learning of information retrieval concepts based on the original concept and feedback gathered in [4]. Infret was expanded with term weighting concepts, interaction tracking capability and multiple improvements of user interface elements. It was evaluated in a class of experienced students who were studying an information search and retrieval course for an entire semester and in a class of novice students who were in their first class in a database design and development course. Both groups of students had to complete six activities based on text statistics and term weighting concepts in two different learning settings. After the activities, the students filled out an anonymous online multipart survey. Selected survey results were presented and discussed in this paper. The majority of both groups generally liked Infret and thought it was useful. The mean usability of the experienced group dropped compared to the first iteration of Infret and the mean usability of the novice group was significantly lower than the average. On the other hand, students liked Infret’s intuitive UI, performance and visualisations. Additionally, the novice students found the help features of Infret especially useful. In addition, several possible improvements have been identified and will be considered for future development. In conclusion Infret fulfils its goal of

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helping students understand concepts of text statistics and term weighting, however, it needs to include more support features for novice users and expand to more IR areas in the future in order to aid experienced students. In the future, we will investigate other collected data such as the experienced emotions and interaction data collected while evaluating Infret to improve Infret, so it provides a better learning experience for the students. Acknowledgment. We would like to acknowledge and thank Graz University of Technology for funding and RMIT University’s School of Business IT and Logistics for hosting Aleksandar Bobić. We would also like to thank for participants for volunteering in our research project.

References 1. Brooke, J.: SUS: a retrospective. J. Usability Stud. 8(2), 29–40 (2013) 2. Brooke, J.: SUS-a quick and dirty usability scale. Usability Eval. Ind. 189(194), 4–7 (1996) 3. Kay, R.H., Loverock, S.: Assessing emotions related to learning new software: the computer emotion scale. Comput. Hum. Behav. 24(4), 1605–1623 (2008) 4. Bobić, A., Gütl, C., Cheong, C.: Infret: preliminary findings of a tool for explorative learning of information retrieval concepts. In: 2019 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative and Blended Learning (ICBL) (2019, in press) 5. Dori, Y.J., Hult, E., Breslow, L., Belcher, J.W.: How much have they retained? Making unseen concepts seen in a freshman electromagnetism course at MIT. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. 16(4), 299–323 (2007) 6. Johnson, R.T., Johnson, D.W.: Active learning: cooperation in the classroom. Annu. Rep. Educ. Psychol. Jpn. 47, 29–30 (2008) 7. De Freitas, S., Neumann, T.: The use of ‘exploratory learning’ for supporting immersive learning in virtual environments. Comput. Educ. 52(2), 343–352 (2009) 8. Frost, S.H.: Academic Advising for Student Success: A System of Shared Responsibility. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 3, 1991. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports, The George Washington University, One Dupont Circle, Suite 630, Washington, DC 20036 (1991) 9. Dori, Y.J., Belcher, J.: How does technology-enabled active learning affect undergraduate students’ understanding of electromagnetism concepts? J. Learn. Sci. 14(2), 243–279 (2005) 10. Pirker, J., Riffnaller-Schiefer, M., Gütl, C.: Motivational active learning: engaging university students in computer science education. In: Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, pp. 297–302. ACM, June 2014

Mobile Learning of Mathematics Games to Enhance Problem-Solving Skill Pallop Piriyasurawong and Supparang Ruangvanich(&) Information Technology and Communication for Education, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. This research focuses on the mobile learning of mathematics games (MLM games) to enhance problem-solving skills and adopts the structure of a closed-ended and a five-point Likert scale questionnaire. The fifteen experts agreed with the eight factors that influence to enhance problem-solving skill (Mean = 4.59, S.D. = 0.56). The questionnaires are randomly assigned to forty students. The results indicate: (1) most of the students are evaluated with MLM games in terms of quality game content (Mean = 4.70, S.D. = 0.65) (2) the students have benefited from the use of MLM games in terms of the sound aspect, especially the appropriateness of the song used in the lesson at a high level, and (3) the students are satisfied at a high level that the lesson could be reviewed at any time. The fifth time achieved the learning achievement at 82 percent, so teachers and schools should put more effort into developing mobile learning games. Keywords: Mobile learning


Mathematics games
Problem-solving skills

1 Introduction In today’s competitive environment, elementary schools that want to succeed must seek to find new ways to be better than their competitors. These changes also led to the introduction and use of mobile devices in education, which is considered the latest introduced type of learning [1]. With the rapid growth of mobile strategies such as mobile phones, PDA, and portable game strategies, the request for better and useful applications of the mobile device has increased. Mobile learning has been defined as the process of learning mediated by handheld devices such as smartphones and tablet computers [2]. The term mobile learning recommends a kind of learning supported or enhanced by a telecommunication device or electronic mobile device [3]. Associated to traditional desktop learning, mobile learning focuses on the mobility of the learning practice and promotes the interaction between student and learning content. Nevertheless, mobile learning is not proposed to substitute the classroom learning but as an improvement or an augmentation to the value of mobile strategies and telecommunication network [4]. Mobile learning also allows the delivery of learning content over mobile devices. In order to accomplish this, the learning content desires to be established precisely for mobile devices competence. It needs to be in a small and © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 79–90, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_8

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compact form so it can be delivered using a wireless network. Henceforward, mobile learning is not about converting all desktop based learning content into mobile learning, but it is about how mobile devices can be used to enhance overall learning strategy [4]. Mobile phones are becoming a part of the daily culture for almost all young generation. However, only a few mobile applications are for learning purposes [5]. Young generation regularly used mobile devices as a platform for playing games. Research directed by [6] reported that about 6 million people transferred games to their mobile devices each month. Explorations done by [7] illustrated that integrate learning with entertainment, called as edutainment. One of these innovations, mobile gaming, is now an essential part of most young adults’ recreation time and an increasingly crucial part of their learning as well [8]. Specifically, mobile gaming is not only utilized during periods when young adults are gaming but also becoming more readily available to anyone worldwide. Data from Juniper Research indicates that by 2019 worldwide revenues from mobile and tablet games will reach $13.3 billion – a threefold rise from the 2014 figure of $3.6 billion, which is classified as a component of m-commerce or m-learning [9]. The education segment is one of the fields that precious by the spread of mobile devices. The number of education-related information exchanged through educational institutions increases significantly over the last few years. Hence, the educational institution is one of the best environments to adopt such technologies [10]. This exploration aims to synthesize the suitability factors, to design and develop, and to evaluate the mobile learning of mathematics games to enhance problem-solving skills. This paper provides the most potential, then users can integrate mobile technologies to support their learning activities. They can utilize many kinds of mobile devices and their applications to increase their learning performance. Several challenges have been accompanying to the slow pace of implementation such as deficiency and cost of infrastructural support systems (access to mobile internet services, hardware and software systems), lack of skilled educationalists in using mobile learning in communicating to the students [11]. The use of computing-related solutions in daily activities has a ubiquitous impact on computing education. The computing industry is increasingly tricky problem solving, analytical, logic, and programming skills from graduates [12]. There is a worldwide trend in teaching computer science, starting from elementary schools, mathematics games are designed to develop relevant skills with various hands-on features for students to practice. Therefore, the real question is this: the suitability factors for MLM games to enhance problem-solving skills is at a high level, and the evaluate MLM games to enhance problem-solving skills is at a high level. The remaining part of the paper is systematized as follows: The second section reviews the literature in both mathematics learning and discovers mathematics on mobile devices. The third section shows the research methodology for the paper, and in its sub-section, the sample size and population have been stated. In the fourth section, the results are provided. The discussion is described in Sect. 5, and in the final section, the conclusion, opportunities, and limitations are presented.

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2 Related Work 2.1

Mathematics Learning

This research emphases on the use of mobile devices and apps for learning in mathematics. One reason for the focus on this discipline is that the current article reports on a component of some researcher projects conducted by the authors, which investigates ways in which learning in mathematics can be optimized with mobile technologies. Mathematics teaching and learning is currently secure government priority areas in Australia and many other developed countries [13]. The diversity within mathematics pedagogical approaches (ranging from extended open inquiries to drill and practice), makes the interaction of mobile learning in mathematics practices of interest. Underpinning current practice in mathematics learning is two dominant and interrelated theories: those of social constructivism and socio-cultural theory [14]. However, in practice, many mathematics classrooms follow more transmissive ways of teaching, which incorporate drill and rote learning rather than investigative approaches [15]. Given that mobile devices are well suited to support learning underpinned by sociocultural perspectives, such as authenticity, collaboration, and personalization [16], it is of interest to investigate what the literature tells us about their use for mathematics learning and to examine the contrast in approaches used. With the increased interest in mobile learning over the past decade, several authors have reviewed its history, e.g., Sung, Chang, and Liu [17], with dedicated literature reviews seeking to capture specific facets of this field. Several literature reviews on mobile learning apps exist. Table 1 lists the studies that have evaluated the use of educational apps for learning. Table 1. Existing studies are evaluating various apps for learning Discipline Number of apps Timeline Any subject 102 categorizing into four types of mobile learning pedagogies 2000–2007 2002–2010 Mathematics 100 app on mathematics from Apple iTunes Store 2000–2013 142 app for mathematics in AppStore 2000–2013

2.2

Discovery Mathematics on Mobile Devices

Constructivism has been situated preferred as the learning theory. Constructivism learning theory is to advance self-directed novices who can access a varied range of cognitive structures and transfer the learning to other contexts that they have not encountered yet [18]. According to Cornu and Peters [19], constructivism requires learners to construct their understanding by trying to practice what they have learned and the real-world application. A study by [20] has also functional the constructivism method in their educational game to clarify commercial. The game level strategy and mechanism for this game is established based on this constructivism theory. For the

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mobile learning method, the game uses activity-based themes for informal and lifelong learning [21]. This style is to support learning outside the dedicated learning atmosphere and make it appropriate for the application, which is to accompaniment the formal learning environment. Research is done by [22] agreed that theories of learning in the mobile environment must highly take the thought of learning outside of the classroom and moved from situated learning to mobile learning which agrees to learn to take place at learner’s usual and preferred place. In the game development approach, games’ criteria are used to determine how to develop the prototype application using the learning modules that have been determined. The game criteria include goals, rules, competition, challenge, fantasy, and entertainment. The criteria guide the development of a game to make it interesting and applicable to any situation. All the criteria are developing a real game-play experience for the audience. All the criteria in order to develop a real game-play involvement for the audience. Table 2 below describes the criteria of the game and explain how they are adopted in the application: Table 2. Adapting the criteria of the game Criteria Goals

Rules

Competition Challenge Fantasy

Entertainment

Function The players know what they are essential to do in order to complete the game level. The instructions are explicitly given in the game menu. In each level, the player will be challenged with different random equations, and the player needs to find a box which contains the correct answer as fast as possible The rule governs the organization structure of the game. The rule, such as time limit or meeting specific demand to advance to the next stage will be implemented User will compete against a time limit as they try to solve the comparison as fast as possible To add excitement to the user, the platform layout has been designed to challenge player agility to pass through the obstacle The game will base on fantasy environments such as dungeon exploration and jungle exploration. This game brings the player to fantasize of being in the maze in search of the correct answer The game will provide a fun learning experience towards the user with the beautiful music and graphics

3 Scope of Research 3.1

Population and Sample

(1) Population The population is Grade 1 to 6 students at the demonstration school of Chandrakasem Rajabhat University School. The research took place in the first semester of the academic year 2017. The mathematics subject is taught in every grade to one hundred and sixty-five students.

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(2) Sample The sample was forty students who had a mobile device with purposive sampling. 3.2

Variables

(1) Independent variable The independent variable is the mathematics mobile learning package. (2) Dependent variable The dependent variable is the enhancement of problem-solving skills. 3.3

Contents

The contents in this research are lessons in the subject mathematics for grade 1 to 6 students, Office of the Basic Education Commission. 3.4

Framework

See Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Research framework

4 Research Methodology A Joint Application Design (JAD) session is a strategic event, and the best method to conduct it is with a five-step method, with three of these five steps preceding the certain occurrence as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Five-step method of JAD session

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This research used JAD; the participants were crucial stakeholders who are involved as the followings. 4.1

Defining the Project

It is the planning stage and defines the session scope. It requires the delivery of the determination of the JAD consultation, such as whether to gather necessities for a new project, modify an existing project, conduct business process re-engineering, or anything else. This stage, the executive sponsor is from the demonstration school of Chandrakasem Rajabhat University and has the final authority to make decisions concerning the project. 4.2

Understanding User Requirement

Even though the actual user requirements manifest at the JAD session, this stage consists of the identification of data, process, and system requirements, and developing a system prototype based on a broad and basic model that assists as an occupied model. 4.3

Preparation for the Session

The preparation stage encompasses arrangement the sessions, selecting the participants, notifying them, directing direction, setting up training for novel participants, making the physical arrangements such as obtaining materials and rooms and directing related events. This phase may also include a kick-off consultation or an orientation. 4.4

Conducting and Facilitating the Actual Session

The success of the meeting depends on proper planning and the capability of the implementor to see over completion to all goals until a conclusion is touched. 4.5

Follow up Documentation

Preparing and mixing the final document that incorporates the decisions made is essential, for otherwise, the purpose of the meeting would fritter out. The scribe or modeler makes the design document, gets approval from the executive sponsor, and mixes it to every person involved. Agreement of the necessities for one stage may involve more than one session. The accomplishment of the session depends on scheduling a detailed agenda and sticking with it, situation clear goals and objectives, the capacity of the implementor to cover all bases and steer the meeting to a definite conclusion, and finally the interest and commitment of the members attending the meeting. When taking on the research, emerging a plan for its application requires actual evidence from a variety of stakeholders and end-users. Having key stakeholders or end-users present during this process will help the researcher gather a much more wide-ranging possibility of their requirements. Gathering these requirements will give the JAD analyst the information needed to prioritize the requirements for an efficient implementation.

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5 Game Development 5.1

Game Structure

As illustrated in Fig. 3, the game structure composes of three part: main menu, game level, and score. The main menu will be displayed upon launch before the player will play and interact in the game level. After that score will be presented to show rank among the player.

Fig. 3. Game structure design

5.2

Game Interface Design

See Figs. 4 and 5.

Fig. 4. Math puzzles game

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Fig. 5. Add/Subtract number game

6 Research Results 6.1

Factors Influencing Problem-Solving Skills

The mean score for eight suitability factors influencing problem-solving skills was between neither disagree nor agree’ and ‘agree’ (Mean = 4.59, SD = 0.56). The experts teaching Information Technology, purposively selected from higher education institutes located in Bangkok, Thailand, were with expertise in mobile learning, games development, and ICT skills. The experts agreed with the statement that learners’ meta-cognitive strategies are essential for developing problem-solving skill (Mean = 4.80, SD = 0.56), whereas they negatively assessed that learners’ selfconfidence of problem-solving might less influence their problem-solving skill (Mean = 4.40, SD = 0.63) (refer to Table 3). Table 3. Suitability factors influencing problem-solving skills Factors Learner’s ICT literacy Providing necessary resources and tools for problem-solving in an online learning environment Peer/instructor’s monitoring and feedback Learners’ self-confidence of problem-solving Problem’s characteristics The improvement of learners’ motivation and interaction from instructors Learners’ meta-cognitive strategies Learners’ cognitive strategies Total

x 4.67 4.47

(N = 15) S.D. 0.49 0.74

4.53 4.40 4.60 4.73 4.80 4.53 4.59

0.52 0.63 0.51 0.46 0.56 0.52 0.56

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Evaluation of Quality of MLM Games

The mean score for quality of mathematics games was between neither disagree nor agree’ and ‘agree’ (Mean = 4.20, S.D. = 0.82). The participants agreed with the content that games are appropriate content is crucial for developing games’ content (Mean = 4.70, S.D. = 0.65), whereas they agreed with the sound that the appropriateness of the song used in the games’ lessons (Mean = 4.03, S.D. = 0.89). Moreover, the participants agreed with the usage that the games’ lessons could be reviewed at any time (Mean = 4.40, S.D. = 0.67) (refer to Table 4). Table 4. Quality of mathematics games (N = 40) Item Content Games are easy to understand Games are evident in describing the content Games are impressive, and steps in learning are fascinating Games are appropriate content Total average Sound Accuracy of the language used to describe the content Clarity of sound used to describe the content The appropriateness of the song used in the games’ lessons Consistency of sound level throughout the lesson Lectures are allowing students to understand the content better Total average Usage Games encourage students to respond to the lesson Games encourage interaction between lesson and learner Games offer continuous interaction and are not complicated Learners can control the games’ lessons by themselves The games’ lessons could be reviewed at any time The appropriateness of the time spent throughout the entire games’ lessons Total average All average

x

S.D.

Level

4.53 4.60 4.40 4.70 4.56

0.73 0.50 0.72 0.65 0.66

Highest Highest High Highest Highest

3.97 3.90 4.03 3.87 3.90

0.96 0.76 0.89 0.90 0.99

High High High High High

3.93

0.89

High

4.13 4.07 4.17 3.97 4.40 4.33

0.68 0.83 0.91 0.85 0.67 0.66

High High High High High High

4.18 4.20

0.78 0.82

High High

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Evaluation of Enhancement Problem-Solving Skills

The criteria of learning achievement were identified as following, >60% means at a moderate level of learning achievement >70% means at a high level of learning achievement >80% means at a highest level of learning achievement The researchers set the achieved learning criteria more than 80%. The chart showed the evaluation of enhancement problem-solving skills of students in MLM games compares to all students for five times. The fifth time achieved the learning achievement at highest 82% that was higher than criteria setting 80% (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Learning achievement percent of enhancement problem-solving skills

7 Conclusion The learning achievement of enhancement problem-solving skill for grade 1 to grade 6 students was 82%. With the progression of mobile phone technology, the increasing processing power and memory space are open for any developer to develop an application for mobile phones. By merging both mobile learning and mobile games, it will provide the user with a new involvement like no other. The game has been developed to harness the potential of mobile education application. The game has been infused with the educational material, with the mathematics as its central theme. While the game may look easy, the game provides an encounter for the user or student who just started to learn the basic principle of mathematics and to have fun at the same time. The game is also mobile and can be played anywhere.

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This study offered the expansion of mobile learning system to include a traditional adventure strategy game as a possible solution to the problem of decrease in interaction, motivation, and engagement during the process of learning to program. The future planned evaluation will determine whether the tool meets users’ expectations and supports the learning of gaming on mobile devices. It was shown to be successful through the evaluation that would be used as an all-inclusive mobile learning environment for computing education. Similarly, since the overall aim of the study is to invent a framework on how to integrate games into computing education, future work will address the integration of other games into the study. Acknowledgment. The researchers thank Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand.

References 1. Hosseini, S.E., Kaed, E., Alhazmi, A.: Acquiring knowledge through mobile applications. Int. J. Interact. Mob. Technol. 9(3), 71–74 (2015) 2. Shuler, C., Winters, N., West, M.: The future of mobile learning: implications for policy makers and planners, Paris, France (2013) 3. Li, Q.: Mobile enhanced learning: application model and practice. Paper presented at the 2008 International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering, Hubei, China (2008) 4. Ting, R.Y.-L.: Mobile learning: current trend and future challenges. Paper presented at the Fifth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT 2005), Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2005) 5. Ahmad, I.: The development of a prototype of educational multimedia application via mobile device. Paper presented at the 1st Asia Pacific Regional Mobile Learning Edutainment (2007) 6. Duncan-Howell, J., Lee, K.-T.: M-learning: finding a place for mobile technologies within tertiary educational settings. Paper presented at the Ascilite Singapore 2007, Singapore (2007) 7. Wagner, E.D.: Enabling mobile learning. EDUCAUSE Rev. 40(November) (2005) 8. Sherr, I., AL-Heeti, A.: Congress isn’t ready to regulate Facebook, but it wants to (2018). https://www.cnet.com/news/congress-isnt-ready-to-regulate-zuckerberg-facebook-twittergoogle/. Accessed 21 May 2019 9. Skierkowski, D., Wood, R.M.: To text or not to text? The importance of text messaging among college-aged youth. Comput. Hum. Behav. 28(2), 744–756 (2012). https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.chb.2011.11.023 10. Sarwar, M., Soomro, T.R.: Impact of smartphone’s on society. Eur. J. Sci. Res. 98(2), 216– 226 (2013) 11. Boja, C., Batagan, L.: Software characteristics of m-learning applications. Paper presented at the 10th WSEAS International Conference on Mathematics and Computers in Business and Economics, Prague, Czech Republic (2009) 12. Lishinski, A., et al.: The influence of problem solving abilities on students’ performance on different assessment tasks in CS1. Paper presented at the 47th ACM Technical Symposium on Computing Science Education, Memphis, Tennessee, USA (2016)

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13. Office of the Chief Scientist: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in the National Interest: A Strategic Approach: Commonwealth of Australia (2013) 14. Jaworski, B.: Theory and practice in mathematics teaching development: critical inquiry as a mode of learning in teaching. J. Math. Teacher Educ. 9(2), 187–211 (2006) 15. Schuck, S.: Using self-study to challenge my teaching practice in mathematics education. Reflect. Pract. 3(3), 327–337 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1080/1462394022000034569 16. Kearney, M., et al.: Viewing mobile learning from a pedagogical perspective. Res. Learn. Technol. 20(1) (2012). https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v20i0.14406 17. Sung, Y.-T., Chang, K.-E., Liu, T.-C.: The effects of integrating mobile devices with teaching and learning on students’ learning performance: a meta-analysis and research synthesis. Comput. Educ. 94(2016), 252–275 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu. 2015.11.008 18. Bada, S.O.: Constructivism learning theory: a paradigm for teaching and learning. J. Res. Method Educ. 5(6), 66–70 (2015). https://doi.org/10.9790/7388-05616670 19. Cornu, R.L., Peters, J.: Towards constructivist classrooms: the role of the reflective teacher. J. Educ. Enquiry 6(1), 50–64 (2005) 20. Polin, L.: A Constructivist Perspective on Games in Education. Pepperdine: Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University (2017) 21. Sharples, M., Pea, R.D.: Mobile learning. In: Sawyer, K. (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, pp. 501–521. Cambridge University Press, New York (2014) 22. Diah, N.M., Ehsan, K.M., Ismailc, M.: Discover mathematics on mobile devices using gaming approach. Paper presented at the International Conference on Mathematics Education Research 2010 (ICMER 2010) (2010)

Combining the Imagineering Process and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model to Create Collaborative Art Innovation Wannaporn Chujitarom1(&) and Pallop Piriyasurawong2 1

2

Rangsit University, Pathumthani, Thailand [email protected] King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected]

Abstract. The aims of this research were (1) to develop a combined Imagineering process and STEAM-GAAR Field learning model to create collaborative art innovation, (2) to evaluate the combined model, and (3) to study the results of implementing the model. The research process was therefore divided into 3 parts in accordance with these aims. The evaluation of the developed model was carried out by 6 experts in related fields and the implementation of the model was carried out by a sample of 32 students. Evaluation was measured on a 5-point Likert scale and implementation on a scoring rubric table from the data, arithmetic means and standard deviations were calculated. The results showed that: (1) the model consists of 4 elements; Input Factors, Process of Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model, Evaluation of Collaborative Art Innovation, and Analysis Feedback; (2) the model was evaluated as highly appropriate ðx ¼ 4:54; S:D: ¼ 0:50Þ; and (3) the quality of students’ collaborative art innovation was rated as very good. Keywords: Imagineering  STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model Instructional Model  Collaborative  Art  Innovation



1 Introduction To survive the digital economy in the 21st century, four challenges need to be addressed: (1) global interdependence; (2) an increasing number of democratic countries; (3) a demand for entrepreneurs with creative thinking; and (4) increased interpersonal relationships. Students must therefore learn to work effectively with others and find ways to deal with conflict creatively, whether in the classroom or online [1]. The application of information technology forms part of the Information and Communication Technology policy framework 2020 (ICT2020) which aims to develop education, create innovative learning, and reduce educational disparity [2]. Innovation is a result of the integration of knowledge in various fields to create novel applications that will have social and economic benefits. Information and communications technology (ICT) is a tool that will lead to many educational innovations [3], including collaborative learning [4]. In this research, innovation refers to tools that that will help © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 91–100, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_9

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education and ensure more effective teaching. The Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field learning model is a new approach that encourages students to engage in comprehensive learning through increased analytical thinking and levels of participation. 1.1

Imagineering

The name “Imagineering” is a portmanteau of “imagination” and “engineering”. It originates from Walt Disney, a famous cartoon animation company. Walt Disney Imagineering is the unique creative power behind the design and building of Walt Disney theme parks and resorts. The unique strength of Imagineering comes from the creative team and world-class technical experts who draw upon the legend of Disney storytelling to pioneer new forms of entertainment through technical innovation and creativity. Imagineering brings together art and science to transform imagination into reality, dreams into magic, and ideas into animation [5, 6]. Imagineering in education is a new concept in learning management. Imagineering means transforming things that are imaginary into things that are real. This is true in practice as the creation of images usually becomes a tangible invention and innovation. Imagineering Learning is a process that reforms learning and modifies teaching methods. Reforming a new course comprises the following 6 steps: (1) Imagine, (2) Design, (3) Develop, (4) Present, (5) Improvement, and (6) Evaluate. Through this process, it is possible to transform learners into thinkers and practitioners who can create inventions and are able to work with others [7]. 1.2

STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model

The STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model is a model that uses STEAM education such as science (S), technology (T), engineering (E), art (A) and mathematics (M) in conjunction with gamification (G), animation (A), augmented reality (AR), virtual world and real world, which refer to the field. STEAM education is an integrated form of learning that helps students learn to think, analyze, solve problems, and act. Furthermore, gamification, animation, augmented reality (AR), real world and virtual world will encourage students to participate in learning. The STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model is a learning model that can promote perseverance through the STEAM-GAAR Field Learning process. It comprises the following five steps: (1) Investigate by Game, (2) Discover by AR-Game, (3) Connect by Animation and Game, (4) Create by Game Animation and AR, and (5) Reflect by Knowledge Exchange Field [8]. 1.3

Collaborative

Effective collaboration occurs when the results of the team’s efforts are greater than anything each member could achieve on their own. However, the results of effective cooperation are not easily achieved as collaboration comes with a set of challenges that, to be overcome, require specific skills. The six skills needed for effective collaboration are communication, authenticity, compromise, tolerance, being a team player, and reliability [9].

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From an education perspective, collaboration skills are necessary for learners in the 21st century. Students work in a variety of teams where, to be effective, they must learn to respect diversity and be flexible and willing to compromise. To achieve their overall goals the team must be responsible for the project and value each participating member [10]. Key collaborative skills are participation, flexibility, compromise and responsibility. The San Ramon Valley Educational Foundation (SRVEF) devised the Imagineering program, a non-formal education program for SRVUSD students. The goal of imagery is to spark students’ interest in choosing certain classes. STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) are studied in middle and high school with the ultimate goal of identifying subjects to pursue. Such classes are very successful [11]. A combination of the Imagineering Process and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model will encourage students to persevere to complete the Imagineering Process and develop a new collaborative art innovation.

2 Objectives The purpose of this research is (1) to develop a combined Imagineering process and the STEAM-GAAR Field learning model, (2) to evaluate the combined learning model, and (3) to assess the results of combining the Imagineering process and the STEAMGAAR Field learning model.

3 Research Scope For the evaluation process, the sample comprised 6 specialists in relevant fields such as Imagineering, STEAM education, Gamification, Animation, AR, Virtual World, and Collaborative learning, who had at least 5 years of experience. They were selected using purposive sampling. The research instrument consisted of Likert scales. From the data, arithmetic means and standard deviations were then calculated. For the implementation process, the sample comprised 32 undergraduate students of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bangkok, Thailand. They were selected using random segment sampling. The research instrument used was a scoring rubric.

4 Research Framework The independent variables were Imagineering [7], STEAM-GAAR Field [8], Instructional Model, Collaborative, Art, Innovation and Combining the Imagineering Process and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model to Create Collaborative Art Innovation. The dependent variables were Collaborative Art Innovation. The process used to synthesize a framework for this model is presented in Fig. 1.

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Fig. 1. Research framework

5 Methodology The research was divided into 3 parts: part 1- development of the model, part 2evaluate the model, and part 3- implementation with the sample group. 5.1

Part 1 Development of the Model

This involved combining the Imagineering process and the STEAM-GAAR Field learning model. First, research and related theories were reviewed and then the conceptual framework of the model was analyzed and synthesized. The next step was to develop a model focused on Imagineering, STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model, Instructional Model, Art, Innovation, and Collaborative. A satisfaction questionnaire was then devised with items scored on a five-point Likert scale: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and strongly disagree. Assessment of suitability was analyzed using means ðxÞ and standard deviation (S.D) in accordance with the following criteria: 1.00–1.80 mean lowest, 1.81–2.60 mean low, 2.61–3.40 mean medium, 3.41–4.20 mean high, and 4.21–5.00 mean highest. 5.2

Part 2 Evaluate the Model

The developed model was presented to experts in all 6 related fields to evaluate the suitability of the model using the questionnaire. The data were then used to calculate the means and standard deviation. The results were used to develop and improve the model which was then presented in the form of a diagram.

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Part 3 Implementation with the Sample Group

The model was then applied to teach 32 undergraduate students of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bangkok, Thailand.. It was assessed using a scoring rubric. The activity was carried out according to the steps involved in applying the Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model. It began with the instructor setting the students a problem that required creative thinking and cooperation to produce innovative art media. The students then worked together to develop and design the media, applying technology such as gamification, AR, and animation to tell the story in a new way. Students thus worked together to create movies, art media, publicize and AR technology. The new art media bring stories and ideas to present with collaborative art innovation. Through these activities, students practiced imagining and investigating by game, discovering and designing using ARGame, connecting and developing by animation and game, creating and presenting using game animation and AR, and reflecting and improving. The art innovation was then evaluated by classmates and their teacher or coach.

6 Findings 6.1

Part 1 Results of the Developed Model

The combined Imagineering Process and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model to create collaborative art innovation contain four elements. Element 1 is Input Factors which comprises Student Analysis, Content Analysis and Environment Analysis. Element 2 is the Process of Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model which consists of six components: Imagine and Investigate by Game (II); Discover and Design by AR-Game (DD); Connect and Develop by Animation and Game (CD); Create and Present by Game Animation and AR (CP); Reflection and Improvement (RI); and Evaluate The Art Innovation (ET). Element 3 is the Evaluation of the Art Innovation Collaborative, which consists of 3 components: Beauty, Creativity, and Collaborative Skill. Element 4 is Analysis Feedback. These are all depicted in Fig. 2. 6.2

Part 2 Result of the Evaluation

The evaluation of the combined Imagineering process and STEAM-GAAR Field learning model to create collaborative art innovation was undertaken by 6 specialists and found to be at the highest appropriate level, as shown in Table 1. From the table, the suitability criteria are: 1.00–1.80 mean lowest, 1.81–2.60 mean low, 2.61–3.40 mean medium, 3.41–4.20 mean high, and 4.21–5.00 mean highest. The separate suitability of each input factor for Element 1: 1.1 Student Analysis is the highest level ðx ¼ 5:00; S:D: ¼ 0:00Þ, 1.2 Content Analysis is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:83; S:D: ¼ 0:41Þ, 1.3 Environment Analysis is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:83; S:D: ¼ 0:41Þ.

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Fig. 2. Combining the Imagineering process and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model to Create Collaborative Art Innovation Table 1. Arithmetic mean and standard deviation results from 6 specialists Elements ðxÞ S.D. Suitability Elements 1 Input Factors 1.1 Student Analysis 5.00 0.00 Highest 1.2 Content Analysis 4.83 0.41 Highest 1.3 Environment Analysis 4.83 0.41 Highest Elements 2 Process of Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model 2.1 Imagine and Investigate by Game (II) 4.50 0.55 Highest 2.2 Discover and Design by AR-Game (DD) 4.33 0.52 Highest 2.3 Connect and Develop by Animation and Game (CD) 4.50 0.55 Highest 2.4 Create and Present by Game Animation and AR (CP) 4.33 0.50 Highest 2.5 Reflect and Improvement (RI) 4.50 0.55 Highest 2.6 Evaluate The Art Innovation (ET) 4.33 0.82 Highest Elements 3 Evaluation of Collaborative Art Innovation 3.1 Beauty 4.33 0.52 Highest 3.2 Creativity 4.33 0.52 Highest 3.3 Collaborative Skill 4.50 0.55 Highest Elements 4 Analysis Feedback 4. Analysis Feedback 4.67 0.52 Highest Results 4.54 0.50 Highest

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Elements 2 Process of Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model: 2.1 Imagine and Investigate by Game (II) is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:50; S:D: ¼ 0:55Þ, 2.2 Discover and Design by AR-Game (DD) is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:33; S:D: ¼ 0:52Þ, 2.3 Connect and Develop by Animation and Game (CD) is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:50; S:D: ¼ 0:55Þ, 2.4 Create and Present by Game Animation and AR (CP) is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:33; S:D: ¼ 0:50Þ, 2.5 Reflect and Improvement (RI) is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:50; S:D: ¼ 0:55Þ, 2.6 Evaluate The Art Innovation (ET) is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:33; S:D: ¼ 0:82Þ. Elements 3 Evaluation of Art Innovation Collaborative: 3.1 Beauty is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:33; S:D: ¼ 0:52Þ, 3.2 Creativity is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:33; S:D: ¼ 0:52Þ, 3.3 Collaborative Skill is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:50; S:D: ¼ 0:55Þ. Element 4 Analysis Feedback is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:67; S:D: ¼ 0:52Þ. And the sum of the suitability of the model is the highest level ðx ¼ 4:54; S:D: ¼ 0:50Þ. 6.3

Part 3 Result of the Implementation with Sample Group

The collaborative art innovation rubric table example, see in Table 2. Table 2. The collaborative art innovation rubric table Characteristics Work’s beauty Work’s creativity Collaborative Skill: Participation Collaborative Skill: Flexibility Collaborative Skill: Compromise Collaborative Skill: Responsibility Full marks = 18 points

3 Very Very Very Very Very Very

good good good good good good

2 Good Good Good Good Good Good

1 Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate

0 Poor Poor Poor Poor Poor Poor

From the rubric table, where 18 points denote full marks, the criteria are as follows: 0 point is poor, 1–6 points is moderate, 7–12 points is good, and 13–18 points is very good. The results of the implementation showed that the students scored 14.45 points when creating an art innovation collaborative which rates as very good. The sample can also be divided into 8 groups of students, as shown in Table 3. Sample pictures of the activities used in applying the Imagineering process and STEAM-GAAR Field learning model to create collaborative art innovation are shown in Fig. 3.

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Full marks Score 18 15 18 16 18 15 18 15 18 15 18 10 18 14 18 18 18 14.45

Meaning Very good Very good Very good Very good Very good Good Very good Very good Very good

Fig. 3. The activities used in applying the Imagineering process and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model to Create Collaborative Art Innovation

7 Discussion Pornsawan, Wannapiroon and Nilsook [12] published research on the subject “Imagineering Gamification on Cloud Technology to Enhance the Innovative Skill”. They found that 5 experts agreed that imagineering gamification on cloud technology to enhance innovative skill learning was at an appropriate level. Chujitarom and Piriyasurawong [13] also conducted experimental research on “The Effect of the STEAMGAAR Field Learning Model to Enhance Grit”. The results showed a significant increase in perseverance. This is in accordance with Resta and Laferrière [4] who argue that the past 20 years have been very effective for the advancement of information and communication technology. Learning, together with the needs of a knowledge society, has increased the need for flexibility (time and place) and a challenging learning environment (problem solving and knowledge creation). A new analytical framework

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was therefore derived from a number of theoretical perspectives and this represents a new direction for collaborative learning in research. Research should now focus on the most important outcomes of collaboration, such as advanced thinking, deep understanding and knowledge creation, as these are critical to the progress of cooperative learning, both theoretically and empirically.

8 Conclusions The results showed that, firstly, the combined Imagineering process and STEAMGAAR Field learning model to create collaborative art innovation can be divided into 4 elements: Element 1 is Input Factors, Element 2 is the Process of Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model, Element 3 is the Evaluation of Collaborative Art Innovation, and Element 4 is Analysis Feedback. The researcher therefore considers that the Imagineering and STEAM-GAAR Field Learning Model can be applied in 6 steps: Imagine and Investigate by Game (II); Discover and Design by AR-Game (DD); Connect and Develop by Animation and Game (CD); Create and Present by Game Animation and AR (CP); Reflect and Improvement (RI); and Evaluate The Art Innovation (ET). With these 6 steps, the learner will be able to create collaborative art innovation. Secondly, the evaluation of the combined Imagineering process and STEAM-GAAR Field learning model to create collaborative art innovation by 6 specialists demonstrated its suitability at the highest level ðx ¼ 4:54; S:D: ¼ 0:50Þ. Thirdly, using this model, the learners created a collaborative art innovation that was rated as very good. Acknowledgment. The authors would like to thank Associate Professor Dr. Pallop Piriyasurawong, Associate Professor Dr. Prachyanun Nilsook, Associate Professor Dr. Panita Wannapiroon, Associate Professor Dr. Namon Jeerungsuwan, Dr. Rukthin Laoha, Dr. Thada Jantakoon, Miss Kanokrat Jirasatjanukul, Mr. Thanapol Namnual, Mr. surachet sungkhapan and Mr. Kritsupath Sarnok, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Rangsit University and King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok.

References 1. Bellanca, J., Brandt, R.: 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn. Solution Tree Press, Bloomington (2010) 2. Ministryo of Digital Economy and Society: Information and communication technology policy framework, ICT 2020 (2011) 3. Larkley, J.E., Maynhard, V.B.: Innovation in Education. Nova Science Publishers, Inc., New York (2008) 4. Resta, P., Laferrière, T.: Technology in support of collaborative learning. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 19(1), 65–83 (2007) 5. The imagineers: Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making More Magic Real. Disney Editions (2010) 6. Disney: About Imagineering. https://disneyimaginations.com/about-imaginations/aboutimagineering/

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7. Nilsuk, P., Wannapiroon, P.: Imagineering learning. J. Tech. Educ. Dev. 25(86) (2013) 8. Chujitarom, W., Piriyasurawong, P.: STEAM-GAAR field learning model to enhance grit. Int. Educ. Stud. 11(11), 23–33 (2018) 9. RISE beyond. 6 Skills Needed For Effective Collaboration. https://www.risebeyond.org/6skills-needed-for-effective-collaboration/ 10. Panlumlers, K., Nilsook, P., Jeerungsuwan, N.: Online multiuser interactive learning system on social cloud conceptual framework. In: The Sixth TCU International e-Learning Conference 2015 Global Trends in Digital Learning, 20–21 July 2015. BITEC, Bangna, Bangkok, Thailand (2015) 11. San Ramon Valley Education Foundation (SRVEF). Imagineering. https://www.srvef.org/ Imagineering/Imagineering 12. Pornsawan, P., Wannapiroon, P., Nilsook, P.: Imagineering gamification on cloud technology to enhance the innovative skill. In: Proceedings of 2018 2nd International Conference on E-Business and Internet, Taipei, Taiwan (2018) 13. Chujitarom, W., Piriyasurawong, P.: The effect of the STEAM-GAAR field learning model to enhance grit. TEM J. 8(1), 255–263 (2019)

Designing Online Learning Activities for Collaborative Learning Among Engineering Students Anuradha Peramunugamage1(&), H. Uditha W. Ratnayake1(&), Shironica P. Karunanayaka1(&), and Rangika U. Halwatura2(&) 1 Open University of Sri Lanka, Nawala, Sri Lanka [email protected], {udithaw,spkar}@ou.ac.lk 2 University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka [email protected]

Abstract. Engineering is a field or discipline, practice, profession and art to cater to social needs. Always it works in the real world. Therefore, having hands-on experience and working with a group of people will contribute better solutions to society need. Higher education is the place where students get an opportunity to work with peers with similar interests. Collaborative learning is active learning which contributes many outcomes that are beneficial to learners and all other group members in participating and getting responsibility for their own learning. This research is to find out how we can improve Sri Lankan engineering students’ interaction via collaborative learning by using mobile technology. Furthermore, we try to answer the question how Moodle mobile APP based instructional activities can be designed and developed as tools to enhance student interactions among engineering students to achieve outcome based education? Design-Based Research (DBR) approach was taken to develop the course for online collaborative learning. Gilly Salmon’s five stage model was adopted to deliver the course. All facts considered, applying Salmon’s five stage framework to design blended courses could highly result in providing active online and traditional learning. Keywords: Collaborative learning
Engineering education
Student-centered learning and web-based learning

1 Context Collaborative learning is active learning where outcomes are beneficial to learners and all other participating group members in getting the responsibility for their own learning (Muuro et al. 2014). Collaborative learning also leads to the development of metacognition, by improving student participation which shifts teacher-centered education to collaborative mode (Barker 2007; Cheong et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2015; Jeong and Hmelo-Silver 2016). Modern technologies are providing teachers with new opportunities to create, engage and effective learning. Therefore, it is more learner-centric rather

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than closed classrooms and it will shift the teachers’ role more into a facilitator so that despite their differing locations, most learners will carry out their learning in groups. Such groups could be virtual, since their members may never meet face-to-face. They are, however, in all other aspects very real, and group members highly depend on each other in the group for their learning. Gilly Salmon five-stage model provides structured elearning activities which have the purpose of creating greater interaction and participation between participants in e-learning courses (Salmon et al. 2010; Wicking et al. 2016; Ruzmetova 2018). However, there seems to be a gap in previous studies regarding Collaborative Mobile Learning in relation to Engineering Education where highly technical subjects and skill development subjects are included. This research is to find out how we can improve Sri Lankan engineering students’ interaction via collaborative learning by using mobile technology. Further, how Moodle mobile APP based instructional activities can be designed and developed as tools to enhance student interactions among engineering students to achieve outcome-based education will be addressed. Blended Learning Blended learning can be done in several ways. In brief, blended learning is a mix of two typical learning environments, namely online and face-to-face. Simply, a new approach is combining computers with conventional teaching. It provides face-to-face learning which maintains the traditional model of teaching and learning where instructors and learners meet. Thus, blended learning is a fusion of web-based technology and pedagogical approaches or in other words, a blend of instructional technology along with face to face instructor-led training. There are plenty of frameworks to create online and blended courses. Each has its own functions and principles to follow while implementing. This paper will illustrate a deep analysis of Gilly Salmon’s five-stage framework (Fig. 1) in the creation of an initial short blended course of Civil Engineering students at University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. The core purpose of the Gilly Salmon five-stage model is to create better interaction and participation among e-learners in blended courses. It provides participants with benefits to develop skill and comfort through working online and face-to-face. Moreover, moderators’ deliberate attempts to success at each stage of the course motivate learners, build an agreeable atmosphere with the help of proper e-activities and stride learners’ progress in training and development. One of the main prerequisites of this framework is to encourage individual access and introduction of learners to an online learning procedure which is carried out at Stage 1. The sequencing stage (Stage 2) entails participants setting up their online individualities and groups to interact and collaborate during the course. At Stage 3, learners commence swapping information to create mutuality. Discussions at Stage 4 stimulate students to work towards their group goal. Finally, participants reflect on their learning proceeding to find the benefits gained and goals reached.

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Fig. 1. Gilly Salmon five-stage model

Online learning has its drawbacks. One of the main disadvantages is the lack of social interaction which happen in conventional settings. This issue creates a special need to motivate the less independent student (Salmon 2010). The need for a compromise between the conventional face to face sessions and online learning leads us towards a new approach to teaching and learning, hybrid or blended learning (Rogers 2002) “Blended learning is the effective combination of different modes of delivery, models of teaching and styles of learning”. This definition is more comprehensive, adding the dimensions of teaching and learning styles. In this paper, we use theoretical frameworks, and real-life data to help our understanding of blended learning in practice and the way it fits the above definition. In order to address some of these issues, Salmon proposed a model developed through action research. This five-step model provides a “set of constructs” that can be used as a guide to online tutoring: providing Access and Motivation of learners; Online Socialization with learners in order to enable participants to gain familiarity with the online environment; enabling and facilitating Information Exchange; facilitating and encouraging Knowledge Construction through the designed environment; and finally providing scaffolding for Development of online skills and behaviors that enable learners to pursue their learning objectives. The level of learning that students achieve depends on the type of activities and assessment tasks and whether they are aligned with the set objectives or desired learning outcomes.

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Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a set of a hierarchical classification of the different objectives that are set for students.

2 Approach Design-Based Research (DBR) approach was taken to develop the selected course for online collaborative learning (Amiel and Reeves 2008; Herrington et al. 2010a, b). For successful online learning, participants need to be supported through a well-structured developmental process. Therefore, we have adopted Gilly Salmon’s five-stage model to deliver the selected course. The participants of this study were 128 students of the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa (UoM), Sri Lanka. The study was conducted on the Building Design Process and Application (BDPA) course offered in semester 2 of the 1st year of the engineering degree program. None of the students had prior experience in online collaborative learning. However, they had experienced Moodle activities during semester 1. BDPA lasts 14 weeks and involves a 1-hour face-to-face lecture session and a 3-hour practical session per week, during which students work in small groups to complete a laboratory assignment and discuss tutorial problems. During the first session of the course, students were put into 10 groups consisting of 12 to 13 members in each group for assessment. They were assigned various topics that had to be covered in the module. In addition, students were allowed to use the Moodle class for discussion as a group or individually. Teacher, Instructors or peer students can actively participate in the discussion. During the course, the teacher gradually guided students to move into MOODLE online environment by arranging both face-to-face as well as web-based group activities. At the end of the semester, students were evaluated for both theoretical and practical knowledge in the final written examination. Individual submissions, inclass submissions, and group submissions are compulsory for both offline and Moodle and carry 30% weight for final grading of the module. To determine the perceptions on Moodle collaborative environment, a survey questionnaire was prepared 5-point Likert scale questions. Students’ submission rates and students’ discussions were monitored through Moodle log records. Learners’ feedback on PBL activities, experience with MoodleApp, perspectives on group discussions and effectiveness were collected through a structured questionnaire and group interviews. When designing the course we have adopted the approach given by Bloom’s as described in Fig. 2 (Forehand 2011; Li and Brill 2015). In this research, our main objective is to promote active learning concepts among engineering students. Therefore the course was designed to promote learning by doing concepts. Since it helps students to remember 90% of things what they do. Table 1 shows the blended learning activities given to students in each stage of Blooms Taxonomy.

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Fig. 2. Active learning vs passive learning

Further, Peramunugamage et al. (2019) developed Moodle Mobile PBL plugin was introduced to the students (Peramunugamage and Usoof 2019) and the course was designed according to the Gilly Salmon five-stage model as described in Table 2. When students completed the course and when they reached to stage 5 of the Salmon’s model they were capable enough to work on their own ideas which were obtained through e-activities of the whole course. In this case, each participant will have a variety of approaches to cope with ideas and knowledge in accordance with the learning styles they possess. E-activities in the course is entirely aimed to reflect on the knowledge which is built in the previous phase. Students had to look back through the entire course to reflect on their knowledge constructed when designing the final model of their assigned project. Table 1. Blended learning activities Level of learning

Type of blended learning activities

Creating Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing Evaluating Checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging, testing Applying Implementing, carrying out, using, executing, editing Understanding Interpreting, summarizing, classifying, explaining, comparing Remembering Recognizing, listing, describing, identifying, retrieving, naming, locating

Presentation, group projects, 3d modeling, mapping

Online chat or discussion, presentations, peer evaluation, Model Making Online presentations, model designing, Computeraided drafting Blog, wiki, discussion forum and lecture videos

Online quizzes, internet searches Q&A discussion forums, chat, presentations

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Week

Phase

Topic

Online tasks

1–2

Stage 1 Access and Motivation Stage 2 Online socialization

Introduction grouping and brainstorming Group assignment 2: brief preparation Creating presentations

Two weeks given to familiar with the MOODLE environment Getting to know each other

2–3

4–5

Stage 3 Information exchange

7–9

Stage 4 Knowledge Construction Stage 5 Development

10–13

3D modeling

Site visits

Group discussion to work with group assignment 1, Forum discussions, Group Chats, message sharing Creative writing on Model Making Discussion on final modeling and observations

F2F and assessment F2F lectures were conducted Lectures with individual assessments Group presentations to class 10% Tasks graded by the teacher 10% Final examinations 70% and in-class test 10%

Furthermore, they may look through the responses they made for the previous tasks and discussions. During the course, students were weekly graded by the teacher. In week 12–13, students worked on the final project and they connected online to provide peer review for the project. Finally, in the last week, the teacher wrapped up the course and students could leave their final reflection for the course.

3 Results and Analysis To determine the perceptions of students on online collaborative learning application prepared in a Moodle environment, a survey questionnaire was prepared including an eight 5-point Likert scale questions. Students’ submission rates and students’ discussions were monitored through Moodle log records. Learners’ feedback on online collaborative learning activities, experience with Moodle, perspectives on group discussions and effectiveness were collected through a structured questionnaire. We collected the data on the last week of the course. 128 students were registered for the course and the printed questionnaire was distributed to all participating students in the last week. 97 students were responded to the questionnaire.

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Almost all the students were happy to work with online collaborative studentcentered learning the environment and they were motivated to work with given activities to accomplish the course objectives while working with a group as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Perception on collaborative activities

Further Fig. 4 shows how students provided their opinion on collaborative work that they performed by using Moodle mobile App. Box plot one and two depicts the questions on “I am happy to work in a group” and “I shared the experience with group members” its average is close to 5. That mean students strongly agree with the statement given. Further, students agree with the statements of “I learnt a lot through group discussions” and “Discussion sessions were very helpful” by giving an average of 4. Therefore, by considering all four statements we can say that students motivated to work with an active learning environment setup.

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Fig. 4. Distribution on how students feel online collaborative learning

Further, Fig. 5 shows how students gave their preference for negative questions related to collaborative learning. It confirmed the answers given to the statement “I felt I can work independently/individually”. Its average is 3 - Neutral. In addition, students disagreed with the statements of “I am not competent enough to share my thoughts”, “I couldn’t share my views for group activities” and “Few students dominated the group”. Moreover, students often had a problem with the Internet connection when trying to access the course during the class and some submission types and heavy size uploads were not allowed. Students also reported that they had the opportunity to work with a group not only for the tested course but for other courses too. The students also had the opportunity to use information and communication technologies for their engineering education, which is a basic requirement for engineering accreditation. However, there was only one teacher to answer all student queries. Therefore, he got overloaded with emails and messages. Salmon’s stages allowed students and teacher to familiarize with the collaborative learning environment.

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Fig. 5. Distribution of student’s view on collaborative learning

4 Conclusions This study provides an opportunity to work with an online environment which has benefited to increase students communication skills and information communication technology skills. Further, it allows the student to work in a comfortable environment while networking and learning online. Voice messages, video and image sharing was popular when doing group activities. Moreover, Gilly Salmon five-stage model has not been tested in online engineering education. Therefore, this research contributes to future researchers or practitioners to address the problems which we had and can use the activities for other courses not only in e-learning but also in traditional teaching. All facts considered, applying Salmon’s five-stage framework to design blended courses could be highly beneficial in providing active online and traditional learning. Acknowledgment. This study was conducted at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. We would like to express our gratitude to all the lecturers, non-academic staff and the students who were involved in the study. We express our special thanks and appreciation to Mr. Ruwan Attanayaka, Mr. Waruna Adikariarachchi, Mr. Oshada Akalanka and all CIT studio staff and CITES at the University.

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References Amiel, T., Reeves, T.C.: Design-based research and educational technology: rethinking technology and the research agenda. Educ. Technol. Soc. 11, 29–40 (2008). https://doi.org/ 10.1590/S0325-00752011000100012 Barker, P.: Technology in support of collaborative learning. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 19(1), 65–83 (2007). http://www.jstor.org/stable/23363869 Chen, P., Dong, J., Hernandez, A.: Impact of collaborative project-based learning on self-efficacy of urban minority students in engineering. J. Urban Learn. Teach. Res. 11, 26–39 (2015). IMPACT, 11, pp. 1–35 Cheong, C., Bruno, V., Cheong, F.: Designing a mobile-app-based collaborative learning system. J. Inf. Technol. Educ. Innov. Pract. 11, 97–119 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1145/2307849. 2307856 Forehand, M.: Bloom’s Taxanomy, p. 10. University of Georgia (2011). https://doi.org/10.4135/ 9781412957403.n51 Herrington, J., Reeves, T.C., Oliver, R.: Researching authentic e-learning, pp. 1–18 (2010a) Herrington, J., Reeves, T.C., Oliver, R.: A guide to authentic e-learning. Br. J. Educ. Technol. 42, E11–E12 (2010b). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01154_4.x Jeong, H., Hmelo-Silver, C.E.: Seven affordances of computer-supported collaborative learning: how to support collaborative learning? How can technologies help? Educ. Psychol. 51(2), 247–265 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2016.1158654 Li, W., Brill, J.: Fostering interaction in distance learning through purposeful technology integration in support of learning goals. In: Annual Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (38th, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2015), vol. 2, pp. 260–263 (2015). http://ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/login?, https://search.proquest.com/ docview/1871568157?accountid?=?13158 Muuro, M.E., et al.: ‘Students’ perceived challenges in an online collaborative learning environment: a case of higher learning institutions in Nairobi, Kenya. Int. Rev. Res. Open Distance Learn. 15(6), 132–161 (2014). http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1048242 Peramunugamage, A., Usoof, H., Hapuarachchi, J.: Moodle mobile plugin for problem-based learning (PBL) in engineering education. In: 2019 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 9–11 April 2019. American University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE (2019). 978–1-5386-9506-7/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE Rogers, D.L.: A paradigm shift: technology integration for higher education in the new millennium. Educ. Technol. Rev. (2002) Ruzmetova, M.: Applying Gilly Salmon’s five stage model for designing blended courses. Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları/J. Lang. Lit. Stud. (17), 271–290 (2018). https://doi.org/10.30767/ diledeara.418085 Salmon, G., Nie, M., Edirisingha, P.: Developing a five-stage model of learning in second life. Educ. Res. 52(2), 169–182 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2010.482744 Wicking, K., et al.: No more lonely learning: applying Salmon’s Carpe Diem process of subject re-design to three fully online postgraduate nursing subjects in a regional Australian university Background. In: Ascilite, pp. 642–647 (2016)

Work-in-Progress: Reducing Social Loafing in Information Technology Undergraduate Group Projects S. M. Uthpala Prasadini Samarakoon(&) and Asanthika Imbulpitiya(&) Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Malabe, Sri Lanka {uthpala.s,asanthika.i}@sliit.lk

Abstract. Project-based learning plays a major role in undergraduate education. In Information Technology education, almost all the undergraduate degree programs include group projects starting from the first year onwards. The main objective of these projects is to give students hands-on experience of the theories they have learnt so far, as well as to improve their soft skills required for teamwork, meeting deadlines, leadership and many more. Moreover, projects may help students to improve their critical thinking abilities, face challenges confidently and come up with creative solutions when there is group involvement. Though there are many advantages in group learning, social loafing or simply free riding turns out to be the major problem in this type of group-based projects. Some students in group projects put in less effort into the work than when they work alone. They try to survive in the group and then take the credit for someone else’s work. This scenario tends to de-motivate the hard working members and also create group conflicts. Ultimately, this problem of social loafing affects the group performance and the final outcome of the project may not be as successful as expected. Therefore, finding effective mechanisms for reducing social loafing in group projects is becoming a critical need. The existing research on this topic mainly covers marketing and other fields, but not the field of Information Technology. Hence, this research is focused on reducing social loafing among Information Technology undergraduates. Keywords: Free-riding
Group projects based learning
Social loafing


Information Technology
Project

1 Introduction Project-based learning plays a major role in current undergraduate education despite the difficulties faced in enforcing discipline, especially when students work in groups. This paradigm has played a major role in shifting the teaching and learning process from the traditional teacher centric environment to a student centric environment. Project-based learning is intended to engage students in a real world problem to identify a solution for it as this is considered as a comprehensive and practical approach to teaching (Blumenfeld et al. 1991).

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Many researchers have discussed how undergraduate education can be enhanced by introducing project-based learning into the curriculum in various disciplines (Kanigolla et al. 2014; Redshaw and Frampton 2014; Bilgin et al. 2015). Even though most of the researchers have discussed the different advantages that students can gain by projectbased learning such as confidently engage in teamwork, meet deadlines, provide leadership etc., there are still some other issues that can arise due to this paradigm. Social loafing can be considered as one of the major issues in project-based learning. As per Aggarwal and O’Brien (2008), social loafing is a behavior manifested by certain students who fail to contribute their fair share of effort when compared to the other students of the group. In recent years, researchers have started discussing possible reasons for social loafing or free riding in group projects. A study (Synnott 2016) indicates that the mishandling of group formation, choosing wrong group size, and student misconceptions can be some of the reasons why certain students engage in social loafing. A research done by Shimazoe and Aldrich (2010) has introduced a three stage model that incorporates cooperative learning into a K-12 school environment by taking into consideration group formation and development, and by introducing factors for successful group processes; these factors correspond with student complaints, instructors’ roles and how these roles can best be performed. Several researchers have introduced various types of mechanisms to overcome social loafing in different disciplines. A research undertaken by a business school in UK conducted a trial to reduce free riding by using six different strategies (Maiden and Perry 2011). According to the observations of Strong and Anderson (1990), free riding is a major issue in project-based learning in the marketing domain. So, they have proposed fifteen recommendations for reducing freeriding by students in academic marketing group projects. Davies (2009) has made several recommendations in respect of creating groups, choosing the ethnic mix of students, managing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, recognizing individual effort etc., with the objective of identifying and reducing free riders in a group. In Information Technology (IT) studies, almost all the undergraduate degree programs include group projects starting from the first year onwards. However, based on a preliminary exploration of the literature, it was evident that very few researchers have focused on the social loafing aspect of IT related projects. As the current education system has evolved around a student centric environment it would be a real boon to all concerned if educators could figure out a mechanism to reduce the social loafing so prevalent in project-based learning. This would make it feasible to impart the maximum learning experience to the students planning for careers in the IT domain.

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2 Purpose or Goal Reducing social loafing in group projects is a challenging task. In the fast moving hitech world students tend to find and take shortcuts to pass modules, without providing any actual contribution. They take advantage of group projects and engage in social loafing, which in turn leads to unpleasant group conflicts and discourages the hardworking members. In the recent past, social loafing has become a regular practice among Information Technology undergraduates. It is clear that we need specific mechanisms to discourage students from engaging in the dishonest practice of social loafing in group projects. The common practice in undergraduate Information Technology group projects is to put the students into groups and assign a task to each group with instructions to complete it within the specified period. Most of the time the groups are formed by the module leader but sometimes students are asked to form themselves into groups as they wish. Each group is then expected to come up with a collective solution for the assigned problem with each member making a useful contribution to the group. A weakness of this process is that it supports the practice of social loafing due to the lack of individual assessment. The objective of this research is to find out how we can reduce the social loafing in Information Technology group projects through recommending a set of mechanisms based on students’ perspectives.

3 Approach The study will be conducted among the 2nd year students who are following Information Technology group projects at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology. The primary objective of this study is to explore the effectiveness of a set of proposed mechanisms to reduce social loafing among members of the Information Technology Project (ITP) groups and to identify which factors are the most effective in controlling freeriding as per the students’ perspective. For the study, a batch of 140 students who are following ITP as a module in their 2nd year will be selected. They will be asked to form groups of 5–8 members on their own and identify a client for their project according to their interest. Twelve distinct approaches to minimize freeriding have been identified by the lecturers based on their past experience of social loafing incidents that occurred among group members of previous IT projects. Then methodologies will be developed to put these mechanisms into practice. This will be done mainly by giving students detailed instructions about the new evaluation approaches including the manner in which they must carry out the project and perform the task distribution among members at the beginning of the module. The selected approaches will be experimented with throughout the duration of one semester. Table 1 lists the twelve different mechanisms that were introduced for the purpose of reducing social loafing among members of ITP groups.

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No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Mechanisms to reduce free riding Allowing students to select members for their group by themselves Allowing students of a group to select the client/project they are interested in by themselves rather than having same assigned by the lecturer Maintaining a moderate group size (i.e. avoiding too large groups) Assigning individual functions to each member and entrusting full responsibility for that component to that person Assigning similar responsibilities (responsibility for entire unit from design to testing) to all members Assessing individual contribution of each member during evaluations Checking and ascertaining overall understanding of each member about the project Conducting individual viva sessions Checking individual contribution in document preparation Holding regular group meetings with the supervisor and marking attendance Conducting peer reviews (All students grade the contribution of other members of the group confidentially) Ensuring lecturer involvement in supervision of task distribution and group communication when there are conflicts within the group

The implementation of the selected approaches in ITP groups will be executed as follows: 1. Allowing students to select members for their group by themselves Students will be asked to form project groups by themselves instead of having the lecturers do it for them. The students will be given the chance to select members according to their interests and the expectation is that the students will select members with similar interests and values for their group, which may lead to a reduction of free riding. 2. Allowing students of a group to select the client/project they are interested in by themselves rather than having same assigned by the lecturer The groups will be asked to select the client for their project by themselves. The intention is to allow students to select a project that interests them, rather than having a project assigned by the lecturer randomly. The expectation is that when students engage in something that interests the whole group, they may extend their fullest support to achieve success instead of trying to get a free ride. 3. Maintaining a moderate group size Group size is an important consideration when trying to avoid freeriding. Too small groups may increase the frustration of members, since each member is responsible for a bigger workload of the project. This may lead to freeriding attempts by some. On the

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other hand, large groups too can support freeriding, since each individual member bears only a small workload. Therefore, a moderate group size will be imposed (from 5 to 8 members), with the intention of reducing social loafing attempts by students. 4. Assigning individual functions to each member and entrusting full responsibility for that component to that person Each member will be assigned an individual function and the entire responsibility for that part of the work will be given to that member. This makes it difficult for a member to freeride, because absence of that component due to failure on his part will be clearly visible to all. 5. Assigning similar responsibilities (responsibility for entire unit from interface design to database connectivity to testing) to all members Each member of the group will be given similar responsibilities so that each member must complete the work from front end to back end (from Designing interfaces to Database connectivity) of the respective function. Additionally, all of them should be responsible for generating reports related to their function. 6. Assessing individual contribution of each member during evaluations The evaluation criteria will be designed to focus on the individual contribution of each member. The marks will be allocated individually to the members during the evaluations and this will reduce the attempt at free riding. 7. Checking and ascertaining overall understanding of each member about the project In all the evaluations, members will be asked questions relating to the whole project. The intention is to check their overall understanding of the project, which will be an effective way to identify the free riders. 8. Conducting individual viva sessions Viva sessions will be introduced to measure the individual contribution of each member of the group. At the end of the presentation, each member will be asked coding related questions to check whether they have done the section that has been allocated to them. The members who fail to explain clearly will be identified as presenting work done by someone else. 9. Checking individual contribution in document preparation The students will be asked to mention the individual contribution made by each member in document preparation at the end of all project documentation under the heading ‘Work Distribution’. Also, the leaders of the projects will be asked to assign the contents of the document equally among the members when it is to be prepared. 10. Holding regular group meetings with supervisor and marking attendance The project groups will be asked to meet the supervisor/lecturer in-charge of the project every fortnight with all members required to be present at the meetings. The attendance of members will be recorded for later reference.

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11. Conducting peer reviews (All students grade the contribution of other members of the group confidentially) Students will be asked to grade their colleagues in the group confidentially. The responses will be assessed to identify free-riders. A Google form will be used to gather data related to this peer review. 12. Ensuring lecturer involvement in supervision of task distribution and group communication when there are conflicts within the group Once the group conflicts are identified during the period of a project, lecturers will closely monitor the group and then all formal communication among group members will be done under the supervision of the lecturer. At the end of the project the students’ experiences and their perspectives on the mechanisms used for reducing free riding will be collected using a questionnaire distributed among them. The students’ ratings will be taken for each mechanism used and scoring will be based on a five-point Likert scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. Students’ answers to the questionnaire will be analyzed to get a better understanding about the most effective mechanisms as seen from their perspective. Also, the number of complaints against freeriding incidents will be logged to enable comparison with the previous years. Additionally, lecturers’ views will also be considered in order to evaluate the outcomes of these twelve approaches.

4 Anticipated Outcomes As per the main objective of the research, it is anticipated that most of the selected mechanisms will be successful in reducing freeriding in IT group projects, as seen from the student perspective. We anticipate that assessing the individual contribution of each member during evaluation and checking the overall understanding of each member about the project can be considered as two of the main mechanisms to reduce free riding. These measures will help to reduce free riding in the project, since the students are aware they are being assessed individually. If the component assigned to a member is not completed, it will be very visible and that will affect the marks obtained by that member. Out of the other approaches, maintaining a moderate group size (not too small or too large), assigning individual functions to each member and giving him full responsibility of that part, conducting individual viva session and assigning similar responsibilities (responsibility for entire unit from design to testing) to all members should equally contribute to reduce free riding. These are some of the anticipated outcomes assumed based on the existing knowledge. As per the lecturers’ perspective, freeriding is a big problem in group projects. This leads to much group conflict and causes a stressful situation for the hardworking students. They become less motivated and finally it could badly affect the successful completion of the project. Therefore, according to the lecturers, finding proper mechanisms to reduce freeriding is a very important need.

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Another approach suggested by lecturers is to not mix regular students taking up a module for the first time with those who are repeating the module. They have seen that in most of the cases, the repeating members in the group maintain less contact and involvement in the work than the other members and try to free ride. Through past experience it is recognized that most of the free riding complaints came from mixed groups. Researchers are planning to make an in-depth study of these mechanisms in the future.

5 Conclusion This paper has made a fair contribution to the existing literature on this subject. This research reports the experience and results of adopting a variety of approaches to reduce free-riding in the Information Technology project domain. In addition, valuable insights into student perspectives in respect of group working have been gained. The paper presents the most effective approaches for reducing freeriding as per the student perspective. The lecturers’ experiences and insights have also been taken into consideration. The paper presents the evidence gathered and describes the perspectives of both students and staff on the issue of group working and freeriding. The findings indicate that most of the approaches adopted have been successful in reducing free riding among members of IT group projects. Allowing students to form their own groups and conducting peer reviews were measures that did not find much favor with students though. However, these techniques could prove successful in different cultures. This leads us to conclude that more research must be done in this area. Acknowledgements. This study was conducted at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Sri Lanka and the authors would like to express their gratitude to all the lecturers, students and non-academic staff who were involved in this study or assisted in some way.

References Aggarwal, P., O’Brien, C.L.: Social loafing on group projects: structural antecedents and effect on student satisfaction. J. Mark. Educ. 30(3), 255–264 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0273475308322283 Bilgin, I., Karakuyu, Y., Ay, Y.: The effects of project based learning on undergraduate students’ achievement and self-efficacy beliefs towards science teaching. Eurasia J. Math. Sci. Technol. Educ. 11(3), 469–477 (2015). https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2014.1015a Blumenfeld, P.C., Soloway, E., Marx, R.W., Krajcik, J.S., Guzdial, M., Palincsar, A.: Motivating project-based learning: sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educ. Psychol. 26(3–4), 369–398 (1991) Davies, W.M.: Groupwork as a form of assessment: common problems and recommended solutions. High. Educ. 58(4), 563–584 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-009-9216-y Kanigolla, D., Cudney, E.A., Corns, S.M., Samaranayake, V.A.: Enhancing engineering education using project-based learning for lean and six sigma. Int. J. Lean Six Sigma 5(1), 45–61 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLSS-02-2013-0008

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Maiden, B., Perry, B.: Dealing with free-riders in assessed group work: results from a study at a UK university. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 36(4), 451–464 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1080/ 02602930903429302 Redshaw, C.H., Frampton, I.: Optimising inter-disciplinary problem-based learning in postgraduate environmental and science education: recommendations from a case study. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Educ. 9(1), 97–110 (2014). https://doi.org/10.12973/ijese.2014.205a Shimazoe, J., Aldrich, H.: Group work can be gratifying: understanding & overcoming resistance to cooperative learning. Coll. Teach. 58(2), 52–57 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1080/ 87567550903418594 Strong, J.T., Anderson, R.E.: Free-riding in group projects: control mechanisms and preliminary data. J. Mark. Educ. 12(2), 61–67 (1990) Synnott, C.K.: Guides to reducing social loafing in group projects: faculty development. J. High. Educ. Manage. 31(1), 211–221 (2016)

Poster: Development of Communication Skills for Future Engineers Organizational Forms, Methods and Tools for Their Communication Skills Development at Foreign Language Classes Guzel Rafaelevna Khusainova1(&), Adelina Erkinovna Astafeva1, Liliya Rustemovna Gazizulina1, Gulnaz Fakhretdinova1, and Julia Yurievna Yakimova2 1

Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 Kazan Volga Federal University, Kazan, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. The analysis of the researches and the activity of modern engineer showed that his communication skills are a vital component of his professional competence nowadays. Having analyzed modern approaches to the development of communication skills we have designed organizational and pedagogical conditions for future engineers’ communication skills development at foreign language classes. They include the organization of teaching process in cooperative groups, the use of portfolio method and mind maps, individual and cooperative, as cross-functional training devices and the use of interdisciplinary case-studies in professional field with the use of discussion moderation methods, according to the recommendations, developed to adapt a designed case to the knowledge and motivation level of each student’s group. The ascertaining stage of our experiment showed that control and experimental groups have the same level of communication skills development which is insufficient. Keywords: Communication skills development
Future engineers


Model of communication skills

1 Introduction Nowadays engineering issues become increasingly complex and in these constantly changing conditions and requirements of the workforce collaborative teams, populated by multidisciplinary teams of experts are required. Experts say that communication skills of an engineer (writing, speaking, group interaction, listening, information seeking, understanding, the ability to work in interdisciplinary team and the ability to hand over clearly the professional information to the other team members who are specialists from another field) are a vital component of his professional competence nowadays. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 119–124, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_12

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The analysis of specialized literature in the field of professional activity of an engineer shows that lack of engineers’ communication amongst themselves, as well as with colleagues from different fields can lead to large scale technique disasters. Thus the product/outcome of the activity of an engineer nowadays depends on his communication skills.

2 Effective Organizational Forms, Methods and Tools for Future Engineers’ Communication Skills Development Taking into account the rising demand in high qualified specialists able to work in multidisciplinary teams we use the opportunities of the foreign language discipline with the orientation to their communication skills development. The analysis of modern approaches to the development of communication skills in education let us distinguish perspective universal approaches having great potential for the development of communication skills for future engineers. Among them is the use of small cooperative groups with constant implementation of supervising and managerial roles which allows students acquire methods of team management, train future engineers’ qualities of modern leader, develop abilities of working with people. For the purposes of our research we use the recommendations of R. Johnson and D. Johnson and others [1] which help to create positive active work atmosphere at classes. We form long term small groups with 4 members, because according to researchers they create positive friendly atmosphere where students support and help each other and the quality and quantity of the students’ knowledge in such groups is higher [2]. We use sociometry method to form a group according to the students’ wishes. And every student with low communication skills, which means nobody wanted to work with such a student or just a small amount of students, is placed by the teacher into a formed according to the student’s preferences group. And the teacher shouldn’t form the whole group with students with low communication skills [3]. This distribution helps to overcome group homogeneity. If, according to the researches, students form team themselves, they form homogeneous team [4]. And these self-chosen teams are not effective procedures and are the least recommended by American researches. When students form group themselves it happens that students with high achievements work with the same and low-achieving students work with the same, male students work with male. It is necessary to point out that heterogeneous groups are recommended to be used for the development of communication skills of future engineers because engineer must be ready to work in collaborative teams, populated by multidisciplinary teams of experts. According to the American researchers heterogeneous groups where students show different abilities have the following advantages of the diversity of ideas, perspectives and different tools of problem solving. Their use creates cognitive misbalance that stimulates creativity, learning, cognitive and social development. Students are involved into a process of finding cause-and-effect relations, they participate in the discussion of the study material more often which increases comprehension, the quality of arguments.

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Distribution of roles in a team is the last stage of cooperative group structuring. The above mentioned peculiarities of engineers’ activity require the organization of students’ work in small groups fulfilling different duties within this group. We use sequential execution of the 4 roles: manager, knowledge acquisition and level of comprehension supervisor, consensus seeker, secretary. Students fulfill different duties with the aim of training skills necessary for the engineer in team work and his communication skills development. The student performing the role of a manager must pay special attention to the students with low communication skills. In order to help students we have formulated the duties of a team manager and its every member. The duties of a manager include methodical provision of seminars and projects with hand-out materials, selection of study material, giving timely advice for students, organization of problem-solving communication, etc. [3, 5, 6]. Such roles as manager and consensus finder help team members create efficient relations within a group and improve the quality of learning. Group supervisor asks team mates to explain the acquired material [7]. With large class the teacher doesn’t have the possibility to check all students’ work, so the role of supervisor widens the zone of control at the seminar. We organize work in a way that every student can get practice of different role fulfilling because students change them at every level of our designed model. Portfolio is the next tool we use at classes for communication skills development. Its aim is to develop written communication skills. The content of portfolio is student’s compositions, essays, etc. on the subjects of curriculum. Collecting portfolio materials from the first year of study the students can assess their foreign language discipline progress. Students’ portfolio starts with business photo and short information about student (full name, name of the university and faculty, group number). Then goes an essay “About Myself” where students write about their interests, principles, goals, personal qualities, religion, etc. Then students fill in their portfolio with other essays according to curricula. If they wish, the students can introduce all portfolio information in the form of mind-maps. At foreign language classes mind-maps can be used while different types of classes: working with professional texts for their deep analysis, for structuring lexical and grammar material. Essays, written works can be presented in the form of mind-maps for sequencing the students’ thoughts while essay writing. According to the American researchers [8, 9] the use of case studies enables students to see how specialists work with the data, conduct experiments in order to prove the hypothesis, look for the missing information, hypothesize and discuss the obtained work results in collaborative teams. Thus we have analyzed the approaches to the communication skills development of different researches and have discovered that interdisciplinary case studies have great potential for communicative skills of future engineers’ development. We have developed our approach which consists of the following stages according to the level of complexity. The first stage corresponds to the first year of study. At this stage students are taught to use thinking tools of creative tasks solving. They are based on de Bono’s [10, 11] creative thinking systems and creative thinking tools designed by him, because these tools and creative tasks are uncomplicated and universal.

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According to the purpose of our research we have selected 8 thinking tools which can be divided into 2 groups: (1) Direct Attention Thinking Tools allowing to define a problem and analyze it. (2) Missing Information Searching Tools allowing to detect all sorts of consequences of some activity, find out what is missing while examining a problem. We use these thinking tools at classes and train students to use these tools in small exercises because our aim is to develop in students the abilities to analyze the problem from all possible angles, to generate as many alternatives as possible while solving problems, to foresee the consequences of their decisions, to see the priorities, to be able to find out the missing information. Let us consider as an example the Thinking Tool “Interests”, which means the analysis of the interests of all who are involved in the situation under consideration. Its study starts with its short description and includes an example of its application. “A new speedway leading to the city center was built. Let us consider how it affects people and their interests”. The students are given as an example the analysis of this situation and the following possible answers to it may be: farmers who lost part of their agricultural lands because of the construction are displeased; neighbours who are separated because of the new road are displeased; people whose houses are situated near the road are also displeased by the noise, exhaust gas and worry for the safety of their children; people living in the country are very glad because they can get to the city center quicker; many urban dwellers are glad because they have an opportunity to reside in the country where the price for flats is lower and the living conditions are better; urban dwellers can go to the country more often; there are more traffic jams now because the traffic flow increased; the ecological situation deteriorated because of the air pollution; the fuel consumption increased and that lead to the necessity to import fuel; the dealers got the possibility to sell more high speed cars; many country people have the possibility to sell their houses more expensive; village schools aren’t in danger to be closed down because the number of pupils has increased. Then students practise the tool “Interests” on different items. Three minutes should be allowed in each case. For example: “A lawyer knows that his client committed a larceny. Must lawyer defend him in court? Whose interests are concerned in this situation?” or “One of your friends works at the cafe as a waiter because it is boring for him to study. Whose interests does this situation cover and what are these interests?” The second stage corresponds to the second year. At this stage we introduce interdisciplinary case studies, created by a teacher on the basis of the recommendations given by C.F. Herreid, J. Erskine and M. Leenders. The researchers J. Erskine and M. Leenders have designed “Case difficulty cube” which has three dimensions – analytical, conceptual and presentation. Their approach allows to adapt a designed case to the knowledge and motivation level of each student’s group. According to analytical dimension the simplest case would be when a teacher gives both a problem and its solution and then students decide whether it fits this problem and whether there are alternative solutions. And the hardest level is when a teacher presents a situation and students define a problem as well as work out a solution.

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The conceptual dimension refers to the level of difficulty of the material containing in the case. The simplest level would be a case which contains one straightforward concept and the third level of difficulty requires significant explanation and clarification for most students. And the presentational dimension deals with the amount of information a case should contain. The simplest level would be to have only the data that is needed clearly presented in the text, table and graph and the text would be short and the third level means that a text would be longer and require significant data sifting and might have missing pieces of information students would have to research on their own. According to the model the most difficult case will be at 3, 3, 3 – hard in all dimensions, the easiest - 1, 1, 1 level. We agree with Herreid that cases must give support for students but also challenge them. If a case is too difficult there will be nothing but disappointment, but if it is too easy it will be boring. Case studies can be based on journal articles, novels and mass media sources, which are selected according to the educational program specialization of an engineer. Depending on the type of information source we use different discussion moderation methods that are universal. The use of thinking tools at the second stage allows students to state the hypothesis, define the problem of the case study and solve it successfully. The developed approach is divided into 2 stages and the second stage must be connected with the minimum level of knowledge of major educational programs or after the Introduction to speciality course. The use of our designed approach at foreign language classes will allow to develop interdisciplinary links and develop such students’ future engineers’ communication skills as speaking, group interaction, listening and information seeking abilities. Thus according to the abovementioned we can state the following contradiction: these methods and approaches have wide approbation at different levels of education but are used occasionally and there are no designed organizational and pedagogical conditions for their use at foreign language classes for the purpose of our research. At the ascertaining stage of our experiment we used diagnostic testing techniques, questionnaire, pedagogical observation and assessment and students’ self-evaluation as the assessment tools. On the basis of our pedagogical observation analysis and the communication skills components we have defined 3 levels of their development: middle, minimum acceptable and insufficient. The summative assessment of our experiment showed that control and experimental groups have the same level of communication skills development which is insufficient and so they need to be developed.

3 Conclusions Thus we have designed the following organizational and pedagogical conditions for future engineers’ communication skills development at foreign language classes.

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1. The organization of teaching process in small cooperative groups, structured on the basis of student’s preferences, based on sociometry approach, to achieve friendly, cooperative atmosphere and complemented by instructor according to criteria of low communication skills to achieve heterogeneity of the group and with sequential fulfilling of different duties, that are characteristic for engineer, working in multidisciplinary team, necessary for the development of listening, understanding, speaking and group interaction abilities. 2. The use of portfolio method and mind maps, individual and cooperative, as crossfunctional training devices that develop writing, information seeking, presentational skills etc. 3. The use of interdisciplinary case-studies in professional field with the use of discussion moderation methods, according to the recommendations, developed to adapt a designed case to the knowledge and motivation level of each student’s group, for speaking, group interaction, listening and information seeking abilities development.

References 1. Burenkova, O.M.: Pedagogical conditions of the efficiency of group learning in the USA universities. Ph.D. dissertation, Kazan (2000). 178 p. 2. Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T.: Learning together. In: Sharan, S. (ed.) Handbook of Cooperative Learning Methods, pp. 51–64. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport (1994) 3. Zinovkina, M.M.: Engineering Thinking. Theory and Innovational Pedagogical Technologies. MSIU, Moscow (1998). 283 p. 4. Johnson, D., Johnson, R., Holubec, E.: Cooperative Learning in the Classroom, pp. 9–11. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Virginia (1994) 5. Shageeva, F.T., Erova, D.R., Gorodetskaya, I.M., Kraysman, N.V., Prikhodko, L.V.: Training the achievement-oriented engineers for the global business environment. In: 20th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL 2017). Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Budapest, Hungary, 27–29 September 2017, vol. 716, pp. 343–348 (2018) 6. Kraysman, N.V., Ziyatdinova, Y.N., Valeeva, E.E.: Advanced training in French with practical application in professional and scientific activities at KNRTU. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, (ICL 2015), Firenze, Italy, 20–24 September 2015, pp. 1091–1092 4 November 2015 7. Perry, W.: What do You Care what other People Think, New York (1988) 254 p. 8. Herreid, C.F.: Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science. NSTA Press, Arlington (2007). 466 p. 9. Herreid, C.F., Schiller, N.A., Herreid, K.F.: Science Stories: Using Case Studies to Teach Critical Thinking. NSTA Press, Arlington (2012). 410 p. 10. De Bono, E.: Serious Creativity (Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas). Harper Collins Publishers, New York (1997). 450 p. 11. De Bono, E.: De Bono’s Thinking Course. BBC Books, London (1997). 273 p.

A Method to Balance Educational Game Content and Lesson Duration: The Case of a Digital Simulation Game for Nurse Training Catherine Pons Lelardeux1(B) , Michel Galaup2 , Herve Pingaud3 , Catherine Mercadier4 , and Pierre Lagarrigue5 1

IRIT, University of Toulouse, INU Champollion, Serious Game Research Lab, Albi, France [email protected] 2 EFTS, University of Toulouse, INU Champollion, Serious Game Research Lab, Albi, France [email protected] 3 LGC, University of Toulouse, INU Champollion, Serious Game Research Lab, Albi, France [email protected] 4 GIP E-sante, French Regional Healthcare Agency, ARS Occitanie, Toulouse, France [email protected] 5 ICA, University of Toulouse, INU Champollion, Serious Game Research Lab, Albi, France [email protected]

Abstract. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest for training future Healthcare professionals using a digital real like professional environment. An innovative interactive digital environment has been designed to train nurses to organize their job in a medical unit which hosts until fifteen patients. A set of interactive scenarios has been embedded in this game-based simulation. One of the critical point is to fit the educational content included in a scenario to the lesson duration. In this article, we present the method used to find a good balancing act between the time required to achieve a scenario and the educational content embedded in a digital game scenario. Keywords: Virtual training environment scheduling · Design experiment

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· Serious game · Nurse

Context

All over the world and especially in healthcare institutions located in leading countries, professionals have to face to nurse job scheduling problem. In these countries, due to financial restrictions in hospitals and evolution of the patient’s c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020  M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 125–136, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_13

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journey through the health care system, new professional practices have taken shape. One of the consequences is that the ratio patient-to-nurse is increasing. The current debate revolves around the best way to train professionals and future professionals to these new practices. In recent years, many experts point the importance to develop strategies to train future professionals in their own context [12]. Elaborating inter-professional simulation and developing collaboration between medical staff and nursing staff [9,11] is a way to train professionals. However, simulating a situation from a real hospital context with many actors is such a complex subject. The nurses deal with a set of uncertainties and interruptions they need to manage and they work in an inter-professional context with a large number of patients. All these points imply that the risk of patient’s care accident is hardly unpredictable. This is also true for domains where system criticality is high, like in nuclear, aeronautic. . . Getting such systems under control requires time and efforts to manage properly a dynamic and complex situation. This article builds on a digital game-based simulation to train nurses to organize their job on a day to day basis and to delegate specific tasks to the nurse assistant staff. Named CLONE (Clinical Organizer Nurse Education), this game-based simulation presents a digital universe which represents a virtual hospital with all the staff (medial and paramedical team). The next section presents the main features of this interactive universe dedicated for training.

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A Game-Based Simulation to Train Nurses to Organize Their Work

Traditionally in Nursing Schools, teachers used to provide paper exercises to train nurse-students to organize their work. These exercises deal with a limited number of patients (less than 6 patients) and aim to challenge the students about the organization of a typical day. Globally, there is a common agreement regarding what skills students must hone comparing on what professionals expect in a real medical unit. The French Regional Healthcare Agency in Occitanie points out the importance to help trainers in Nursing Schools to teach students how to organize their work when they have to face to more than 10 patients. Therefore, we designed a Real-time Digital Virtual Environment (VE) for Training to set nursing students on real-life-like professional situations. This VE proposes a large library of educational situations where a nurse-student plays the role of a regular nurse. The player can both self-schedule their work, act and cooperate with the nurse assistant staff as in a real-life professional context. Such a learning environment should make nurse capacity improvement possible by experiential learning. This environment named CLONE supports providers to train and educate professional nurse on scheduling skills, situation awareness, and decision-making. However, many constraints and difficulties restrict the development of this kind of training. The main constraint refers to the socio-technical environment itself, which is complex and dynamic. Consequently, recreating artificially the professional conditions of work in a real clinical department where more than a dozen

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of patients need cares is hardly possible. On the other hand, operational research has shown that the nurse rostering problem is an NP-hard combinatorial problem. It is extremely difficult to efficiently solve real life problems ex-ante, because of their size and complexity. Therefore, it should be easier to teach best practices in a controlled and well-defined system and to address the problem on line in a secure and high fidelity context. Our research intends to improve nurse training by providing a real-time digital environment, which represents a medical unit in a virtual hospital. The VE includes embedded monitoring tools to control nurse activity. It aims to transfer know-how from experienced nurses to junior nurses by experiencing real-life situations in a controlled and safe educational environment. The VE (see Fig. 1) represents all the actors with whom the regular nurse cooperates such as the medical staff and their patients. The staff is composed of a head nurse, a caretaker, a doctor, a kinesiologist, a courier from blood analysis laboratory, an hospital porter...

Fig. 1. The virtual environment represents a medical unit in a virtual hospital: CLONE

The trainee plays the role of a regular nurse who has to organize their working day and takes care about their patients. We designed this digital environment with game mechanisms and interactive features such as a scheduling system, a task shifting and a decision-making system. The trainer can choose an educational scenario from a library composed of various real-life ones like professional situations. The nurse-student must manage the educational situations based on real-life situations. The library of scenarios is composed of regular situations as well as complex situations in which deficiencies or unpredictable events occurs and mistakes can be made and fixed. Designing educational scenarios for scheduling training is particularly complex because most of the time, the causal chain of events that leads to change the initial formulation of a scheduling problem is unpredictable. It implies a large variety of contributing factors, such as human factors, technical failures, patients’ pathologies... All these factors are difficult to combine artificially.

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In the following sections of this article, we will use the term ‘scenario’. According to the online Cambridge dictionary, a scenario is “a description of possible actions or events in the future” or “a written plan of the characters and events in a play or film”. In the field of learning games, a scenario can be considered as a set of elements: (1) a briefing (mission): presentation of the current situation and expected objectives to reach, (2) a virtual universe: objects, furniture, documents, characters. . . (3) a set of actions, pieces of information, documents, furniture and objects which can be manipulated throw the universe to achieve the mission, (4) playful and educational lockers such as educational prerequisites, educational failures to avoid. . . (5) educational skills to develop or acquire, (6) abstract or concrete concepts which can be manipulated with interactivity throw the environment: game play elements as inventory of assets, monetary system, virtual store. . . and educational concepts as programming, making decision. . . (7) steps or levels which compose the mission, (8) educational objectives to reach (visible or not in a briefing stage) (9) a debriefing: summary of outcomes with feedback that should help the player to succeed in the future. Firstly, a scenario proposes to the players a short storytelling of what is the actual situation and what is the expected situation at the end. Secondly, a scenario provides interactions that allow the players to achieve the mission, it is composed of locks (educational locks or playful locks) to prevent the player to succeed. Finally, outcomes are compared to expected objectives and results are immediately displayed at the end of a game session. In our case, a scenario embedded in the simulation game CLONE is highly configurable to meet the needs of the teachers. Each scenario is composed of a particular combination of patients, a set of unpredictable events, a set of medical dynamic events, the group and the roles of professionals involved in the medical unit. . . The job involves dealing directly with patients to provide care and dealing with the nurse assistant to divide the work in a way that allows for efficiency. To fulfill a mission, the team consisting of the nurse and the nurse-assistant must provide all the mandatory care to all the patients in the medical unit.

3

Purpose

Our research work consists in studying the match between a scenario embedded in a digital game-base simulation and a lesson duration. We mean by lesson a time slot or a period dedicated to a unit of such a curriculum. To that end, we present how we design a scenario and vary the educational content of a scenario embedded in the simulation game. The objective aims to find a balancing act between the duration of a training session and the educational content embedded in a digital game scenario.

4

State of the Art

In Educational Research, all the studies reviewed so far address the questions of designing, developing an educational content and evaluating educational inter-

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actions such as programs, learning processes, learning environments, materials, digital learning environments (serious games, virtual simulation. . . ) in a teaching context. In this section, we describe the following methodologies used in Educational Research for learning sciences: Design Experiment or Designbased Research, Didactic Engineering, Cooperative Engineering and Collaborative Research. Then, we argue the choices that guided this research. The term ‘design experiment’ was introduced in 1992 by Brown [3] and Collins [6]. Design-based research (DBR) is often a combination of development and validation studies [5]. In validation studies, researchers choose to work in the natural settings of classrooms as ‘test beds’, they do not work in controlled settings such as laboratory or simulated context. They use a set of approaches: analysis, design, evaluation and revision activities. The assessment is part of the design process, with iteration between design and analysis. They iterate several times until finding a satisfying balance between the intended purpose and the realization [10]. According to Collins et al. [7], the DBR addresses theoretical questions about the nature of learning and the need for studying learning phenomena in the real-world context. They also pointed the difficulties arising from the complexity of real-world situations and their resistance to experimental control. They highlighted the difficulty to characterize independent variables and control them. Most of the time, design experiments often lead to the collection of large amounts of data that are particularly difficult to analyze. They highlighted the difficulty to characterize independent variables and control them. Most of the time, design experiments often lead to the collection of large amounts of data that is particularly difficult to analyze. The collaborative research [13] is based on the collaboration between teachers and researchers in Educational Research. Together, they form deeply experienced communities that promote teaching practices in different disciplinary fields. In this methodological process, the teachers and the researchers collaborate and switch their roles to share the responsibility in each step of the process. It aims to develop ‘peripheral experiences’ [8]. The ‘Didactic engineering’ is a french didactic research methodology [1]. It relies on an experiential scheme which is the design, the analysis and evaluation of teaching sequences. This engineering draws on the research of repeatable teaching sequences which aim to produce theoretical results linked to an educational context. The purpose of this methodology is to achieve teaching resources previously approved by researchers. According to Artigue [1], the methodology is divided in three main dimensions: • the epistemological dimension: this dimension is associated to the knowledge brought into play, • the cognitive dimension: this dimension is associated to the cognitive characteristics of the public targeted by the training, • the didactic dimension: this dimension is associated to the characteristics of the functioning of the educational system (video-record). In our research, contrary to the DBR approach, the method consists in observing the use of the game-based simulation in a teaching context and not to improve the teaching method itself. All along our research project, we do not cooperate with the teachers before or after the teaching stage. Our purpose is

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not to modify the teaching sequence but to evaluate the benefits of using a digital game-based simulation in a lesson. To that end, we need to check the match between the task and the allocation time dedicated to the task. Carroll [4] and Bloom [2] pointed that a learner can success to achieve a task only if they are given the time required to learn to perform a task. Carroll highlights (1) the time spent on learning and (2) the time required to learn. The time spent to learn depends both on the time allocated for learning by the teacher and on the dedication or perseverance of the learner. Our research relies on the french didactic engineering methodology which enables us to validate the educational teaching content. This methodology enables us to create a favorable context for studying and understanding the didactic system [1]. Previously to the experiment in the natural classrooms, the game simulation has been designed and validated by a group of expert-trainers to answer an identified issue (epistemological dimension). The content used has previously been validated before the experiment with the nursing students. During the experiment, we check the software usability and acceptability (cognitive dimension). Finally, the characteristics of the teaching system (the didactic dimension) is measured through some variables (see Sect. 5) to check if the time allocated to a training session is sufficient or not to achieve a task.

5

Method

This virtual environment is used in real training sessions with a trainer and their students in a Nursing School. We aim to analyze the impact of the specific educational scenario content and of training session duration on student’s feelings and behavior. We try to identify what are the best combinations of duration, scenario and game parameters for a training session when students need to both schedule their work and realize their job in the VE. First, we have checked the usability of the application and then we study some variables to analyze if the students and trainers are able to realize the activities. The variables explored are: (1) training session duration, (2) scenario pattern, (3) game parameters. Globally, our research work aims to describe and understand the uses of the game-based simulation in ordinary classrooms. The observation takes place in the natural settings of classrooms through different vectors: (1) a monitoring software has been developed to trace the learner activity through the simulation game, (2) the classroom is equipped to video record the lesson (3) a survey is used to collect qualitative data from students after a lesson. We organized an experiment with final-year students in 11 Nursing Schools in France (in the western region of Occitanie). 55 trainers who teach in these Nursing Schools have been involved in the experiment. Trainers have been taught how to use the simulation game before using it with their students. They have been given the entire pedagogical content, video trailer and documents to use during a lesson with their students. 64 lessons with the simulation game were realized all over the Nursing Schools involved in the experience. The trainers in

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each Nursing School were free to plan a lesson based on the simulation game in a time slot of 2, 3 or 4 h (Table 1). Table 1. Typology of the lessons Type

Category Description

1 × 2 h 1–2

The simulation game is used during an unique lesson of 2 h

1 × 3 h 1–3

The simulation game is used during an unique lesson of 3 h

1 × 4 h 1–4

The simulation game is used during an unique lesson of 4 h

2 × 2 h 2–2

The simulation game is used during two lessons of 2 h

2 × 3 h 2–3

The simulation game is used during two lessons of 3 h

Whatever the lesson duration, the expected skeleton of a lesson is composed of 4 periods. In the first step, the trainer briefs the students on the simulation-based learning and presents the link between the simulation game and the National Nursing Curriculum. The main features of the simulation game are presented and the trainer shows a short film-trailer advertising the simulation game. This stage will be called ‘The briefing’ stage. Secondly, the trainer suggests the students use a basic scenario in which a unique virtual patient is in the medical unit. This should ensure a good catch in hand. Thirdly, the students use a scenario with a combination of virtual patients. Depending on the duration of the training session, the second scenario could embed either 3, 5 or 7 virtual patients, so that the students progressively climb the learning curve. These two stages will be called ‘The simulation’ stage. Fourthly, the trainer asks the students how they manage the situation, what are the main difficulties regarding the pathologies of the patients. . . The trainer tries to make the students express the main points to self-organize. . . This stage will be called ‘the debriefing’ stage. During a lesson, each student uses a computer. The ratio students-to-teacher in the same room is 15. Using the simulation game in pairs is not allowed for students. However, teachers in 3 Nursing Schools on 11 preferred to work in pairs in the same classroom to be more comfortable. In these cases, 2 teachers worked in a classroom with less than 25 students. Each one can assist the students during the simulation step. During the domain analysis stage, we gathered 14 virtual patient health records using data of real patients. In this stage, around twenty expert-trainers from Nursing Schools have been involved. Experts chose the set of 14 patients with different pathologies which globally represents the traditional distribution in a medical unit of general medicine. During the professional activity analysis stage, the nursing experts described a continuum of care required by the virtual patients. This package was classified into 3 groups: the compulsory care, the expected care and the optimal care. The compulsory care is the one prescribed by the doctor. This classification helped us to establish 3 groups of virtual patients. A letter is associated to a group and informs on the complexity of the pathology.

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The complexity of the pathology is calculated from the number of compulsory care required which is directly linked to the team workload. For example, letter F is used to gather the patients whom pathology implies less than 7 compulsory nursing care. The Table 2 indicates with a letter the typology used to distinguish the pathology complexity. F: low difficulty, C: medium difficulty and D: high difficulty. Table 2. Typology used to create a scenario pattern Type Number of patients Description F

5

Patient who requires less than 7 compulsory nursing care

C

6

Patient who requires less than 13 compulsory nursing care

D

3

Patient who requires less than 24 compulsory nursing care

By varying the number of patients in the virtual hospital, we change the educational content of a scenario and the level of difficulty. In fact, we designed a set of educational scenarios (see Table 3) by combining a subgroup of patients. The subgroup of patients was chosen according to their pathology. Table 3. Typology of the educational scenario Pattern

Description

F

The scenario contains 1 patient who requires a low-level of care

2F,1D

The scenario contains 3 patients: 2 patients who require a low-level of care and 1 who requires a high-level of care

5F

The scenario contains 5 patients who require a low-level of care

1F,2C,2D The scenario contains 5 patients: 1 who require a low-level of care, 2 who require a medium-level of care and 3 who require a high-level of care 5F,2C

The scenario contains 7 patients: 5 patients who require low-level of care

As observed by educational scholars for several decades, a promising strategy consists in using video games and gamification to increase engagement. By varying some game parameters, we would like to observe the impact of particular game parameters on the level of difficulty. We globally can think that the more complex is the scenario, the longer is the time spent on it by the students. As the consequence, the students concentrate themselves and experiment enjoyment during an interesting activity or discouragement during a too difficult activity [14]. The psychological state that Csikszentmihalyi [15] called ‘flow’ refers to

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a state of mind characterized by focused concentration and elevated enjoyment during intrinsically interesting activities. In the same spirit, if a scenario is too complex to solve, the students should have a feeling of hopelessness after losing the simulation game. A bad configuration of game parameters can lead to demotivated learners. The learner motivation can be impacted through game-play-based interaction. In our case, we parametrized (1) the number of missed compulsory care before a game over, (2) a backup of the medical unit scheduling in a game session, (3) a real-time graphical display of objectives reached.

6

Outcomes

The teachers spent in average 18 min to present the simulation game and to brief the students. The catch in hand duration with a scenario with one patient of type F was around 26.89 min. In the case of 3 h lesson, we changed different parameters to achieve an acceptable number of non-interrupted game sessions with the training scenario. We arbitrary considered that the educational content fitted with the time allocated to the task when 90% of students performed a complete game session and 60% of students succeeded in achieving the task. Firstly, trainers used a scenario which presents a medical unit which hosts 5 patients and where no compulsory care should be forgotten. The game-based simulation forgave no mistake. The time allocated to a lesson was 3 h and the scenario content embedded 5 patients (pattern 1F,2C,2D). This predefined configuration enabled us to calibrate the minimum time required to achieve a scenario. With this first configuration, cent per cent of 120 students failed and forgot to give at least one compulsory care to one of the 5 patients. This point caused a feeling of hopelessness after losing several time. Another important point to underscore is that the average time spent on scheduling represented more than 1 h. As a consequence, we changed the rules of the simulation game and introduced the concept of life. The game engine allows the player to make n-errors before losing. As the time spent in the ‘scheduling’ stage was relatively long compared to the time spent in the ‘medical unit’ stage, we chose to program a new feature to save the scheduling stage. With this new feature, the game engine provides a persistent universe which allows the learner to save their scheduling and to spend less time when they replay the same scenario. Secondly, trainers used the same scenario with the same pattern but the game engine had been adapted to the teaching context with the features presented above. As the consequence, the time spent to perform a task was shorter and few students managed to achieve the task. However, too few learners were victorious. Thirdly, trainers used other scenarios with different patterns and different lesson time-lines. The Table 3 shows detailed results with different combinations. The experiment shows that the learners’ achievements and the time spent to achieve a task depend on the pattern of the scenario and the time allocated to the lesson. It also highlights the impact of the lesson time-lines on the acceptability.

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All around the process, when the lesson time-lines was 2 h, the teachers interrupted the game session to respect their teaching plan. The students who experienced difficulties or who are slow on the uptake how to organize their work, were stopped during their simulation. These interruptions generated some frustration and worked against the educational purpose. It is important to note that in spite of these interruptions, the students mainly expressed their interest and highlighted their frustration not to have enough time to achieve their tasks. They also expressed their interest to use this simulation game to improve their training in a longer lesson or/and from home. Modifying the lesson time-lines and the scenario used in the game-simulation enabled us to reduce the learner’s frustration (Table 4). Table 4. Correlation between acceptability and course duration Time Content

7

Pattern

Mistake(s)

Save Results

3h

Catch in hand 1F 1 mistake max. Training scenario 1F,2C,2D 1 mistake max.

No No

Good acceptability Frustration

3h

Catch in hand 1F 1 mistake max. Training scenario 1F,2C,2D 5 mistakes max. No

Good acceptability Frustration

3h

Catch in hand 1F 1 mistake max. Training scenario 1F,2C,2D 5 mistakes max. Yes

Good acceptability Frustration

3h

Catch in hand 1F Training scenario 5F

Good acceptability Good acceptability

2h

Training scenario 1F,2C,2D 5 mistakes max. Yes

Frustration

2h

Training scenario 2F,1D

5 mistakes max. Yes

Acceptable

2h

Catch in hand 1F Training scenario 2F,1D

1 mistake max. Yes 3 mistakes max. Yes

Good acceptability Frustration

4h

Catch in hand 1F Training scenario 5F,2C

1 mistake max. Yes 7 mistakes max. Yes

Good acceptability Acceptable

1 mistake max. 5 mistakes max. Yes

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was to describe a method to evaluate the match between the time allocated to a game-based learning and the time required by students and teachers to use it in a teaching context. To evaluate this match, an experiment was carried out with an innovative digital environment designed to train the nurses to schedule and manage their activity in a complex and dynamic inter-professional context. We present the results of 148 h of training sessions using this simulation game in teaching contexts. Training sessions were organized in National French Nurse Schools using this game-based simulation

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with different course duration and different difficulty of scenario. This part of the experiment focused on scenarios, which present less than 7 virtual patients. These sessions enabled us to analyze the match between the task difficulty and the time allocated to the task. The results show how important the settings of the simulation game are. Using the same simulation game, the students can feel frustration or fun. When time spent on a scenario is not sufficient to perform a task, the feeling of frustration is high. On the contrary, when time spent on a scenario is sufficient, the feeling of frustration disappears. Future work aims to design an educational engineering dedicated to trainers to optimize the use of the digital environment. Future experiment will focus on scenarios with more than 7 patients in the virtual medical unit and will take place in National French Nurse Schools involved in the project. Acknowledgments. These works are part of a global innovative IT program whose partners are INU Champollion (University of Toulouse) and the French Regional Healthcare Agency (Occitanie). The steering committee is composed of Ph.D. C. Pons Lelardeux, Ph.D. M. Galaup, Pr. H. Pingaud, Pr. P. Lagarrigue, C. Mercadier, V. Teilhol.

References 1. Artigue, M.: Ing´enierie didactique, recherches en didactique des math´ematiques, vol. 9/3. La pens´ee sauvage, Grenoble (1990) 2. Bloom, B.S.: Time and learning. Am. Psychol. 29(9), 682 (1974) 3. Brown, A.L.: Design experiments: theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. J. Learn. Sci. 2(2), 141–178 (1992) 4. Carroll, J.B.: A model of school learning. Teach. Coll. Rec. 64, 723–733 (1963) 5. Cobb, P., Confrey, J., DiSessa, A., Lehrer, R., Schauble, L.: Design experiments in educational research. Educ. Res. 32(1), 9–13 (2003) 6. Collins, A.: Toward a design science of education. In: Scanlon, E., O’Shea, T. (eds.) New Directions in Educational Technology. NATO ASI Series (Series F: Computer and Systems Sciences), vol. 96, pp. 15–22. Springer, Heidelberg (1992) 7. Collins, A., Joseph, D., Bielaczyc, K.: Design research: theoretical and methodological issues. J. Learn. Sci. 13(1), 15–42 (2004) 8. Elliott, J.: Towards a comprehensive pedagogical theory to inform lesson study: an editorial review. Int. J. Lesson Learn. Stud. 4(4), 318–327 (2015) 9. Gough, S., Hellaby, M., Jones, N., MacKinnon, R.: A review of undergraduate interprofessional simulation-based education (IPSE). Collegian 19(3), 153–170 (2012) 10. Plomp, T.: Educational design research: an introduction. In: Educational Design Research, pp. 11–50 (2013) 11. Reese, C.E., Jeffries, P.R., Engum, S.A.: Learning together: using simulations to develop nursing and medical student collaboration. Nurs. Educ. Perspect. 31(1), 33–37 (2010) 12. Riem, N., Boet, S., Bould, M., Tavares, W., Naik, V.: Do technical skills correlate with non-technical skills in crisis resource management: a simulation study. Br. J. Anaesth. 109(5), 723–728 (2012)

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13. Savoie-Zajc, L., Descamps-Bednarz, N.: Action research and collaborative research: their specific contributions to professional development. Educ. Action Res. 15(4), 577–596 (2007) 14. Shernoff, D.J., Csikszentmihalyi, M., Schneider, B., Shernoff, E.S.: Student engagement in high school classrooms from the perspective of flow theory. In: Applications of Flow in Human Development and Education, pp. 475–494. Springer (2014) 15. Csikszentmihalyi, M.: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, vol. 41. HarperPerennial, New York (1991)

Poster: Multilingualism as a Means of Students’ Technocommunicational Competence Forming at Engineering University Ekaterina Tsareva(&), Roza Bogoudinova, Leisan Khafisova, and Gulnaz Fakhretdinova Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The accelerated rate of scientific development and technology contributes the expansion of products of intellectual activity exchange between countries and the formation of international scientific and technical relations. Scientific and technological progress has gone beyond the national wealth of a single state and has acquired an inter-ethnic character. With the development of modern forms of economic cooperation, the need for specialists with new communication capabilities is increasing. That is why an important task of engineering education is to ensure high quality language training based on multilingual approaches to training and considering the current and future needs of science and industry. In the framework of foreign language training at Kazan National Research Technological University the technocommunicational competence on the base of multilingualism is organized for developing the professional and technical communications. The technology of technocommunicational competence forming can be used in any engineering university, as well as in the system of supplementary vocational education. Keywords: Multilingualism
Technocommunicational competence Engineering education
Foreign languages training




1 Context The development of international relations in the field of science and technology, the possibility of a wide exchange of scientific and technical information using modern information and communication technologies, work in multinational teams impose several new requirements for a graduate of engineering universities. He or she should be fluent in foreign languages, possesses the ability of professional communication with representatives of different countries, considering the national and cultural characteristics of their social and verbal behavior. Under these conditions the formation of the technocommunicational competence of future engineers, and as a result the ability and readiness of the individual for effective social interaction in personal and professional activities are of great importance. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 137–142, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_14

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The growing general interest of students in foreign language training, the expansion of opportunities for intercultural, professional and educational exchange with different countries of the world actualizes the problems of multilingualism as knowledge of several foreign languages and leads to a rethinking of the concept of language education in the context of professional training of engineering students, to changing the content and structure of foreign language training.

2 Purpose The purpose of foreign language training in the system of engineering education is to teach students to be ready for all sorts of communications, including multilingual, intercultural and technical. In this case grounding of scientific and methodological approaches to change the structure and content of foreign language training, focusing on technical communication forming in accordance with the requirements of the international and Russian communities for the accreditation of engineers become key goals. International communities for accreditation of engineers, such as FEANI (Europe), CEAB (Canada) require the following communication skills: – to work in an international team on multidisciplinary projects; – fluency in European languages enough to facilitate communication throughout Europe; – readiness for joint activities in multinational working groups with representatives of different languages and national cultures; – knowledge of regional peculiarities of engineering activity; – high responsibility for engineering decision-making; – social adaptation [1, 2].

3 Approach In the context of internationalization of vocational education multilingualism becomes an effective tool for intercultural communication in the global space. The mutual penetration of different cultures and the need to understand the linguistic characteristics of nations lead to the solution of global problems, where the language acts as a tool for in-depth knowledge of the socio-cultural meanings of modern social processes. It follows that the training of specialists who speak several foreign languages and are capable of intercultural communication is an important task of educational organizations. Domestic and foreign scientists consider multilingualism as the ability of person to use two or more foreign languages at any level in intercultural communication. However, in this context, it is important that multilingualism is not just a variety of languages, but it is also the ability to speak two or more foreign languages at any level, the opportunity for students to choose their own languages for further study, acquaintance with the ways and strategies of their learning, familiarization with other

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languages and cultures that contribute to the formation of a multilingual personality and multilingual communicative competence. A feature of the educational and cognitive potential of multilingualism as a means of formation in an engineering university is its consideration as a means of forming technocommunicational competence, which is defined in the main pedagogical approaches, principles, methods, forms, content of teaching foreign languages. Technocommunicational competence is considered as a manifestation of the ability of an engineering university student to professional communication strategies in order to transfer technical information in several languages, taking into account sociocultural values of society, expressed in the skills of searching, critical analysis, synthesis, adaptation, visualization of information for the preparation and execution of accompanying technical documentation in several foreign languages, including for a wide audience of users. Technocommunicational competence includes also sociocultural component through the ability and readiness for effective social interaction and mobility in personal and professional activities. Indicators of technocommunicational competence are: – – – – –

multilingualism; knowledge of socio-cultural characteristics of society; ability to produce technical text and adopt it to wide audience; strategies for transferring technical information in foreign languages; ability to persuade, motivate using technical information.

The presence of all these indicators lead to effective social adaptation and professional socialization of engineer. Socio-cultural adaptation, professional socialization and engineering culture are the connecting elements of the technosphere and society. This connection is felt through a technical product or professional interaction of an engineer and a society. In the system of engineering education during the process of professionallyoriented foreign language training special attention is paid to the formation multilingual technocommunication - a specialist operating with technical terms in several foreign languages, able to convert technical information into available text for a wide audience. This is about the preparation of technical documentation in different languages in the form of user instructions for potential consumers who are not experts in the field of technology. According to E. Yuste, a specialist in computer technical translation, questions of multilingual translation of accompanying technical papers at enterprises should be discussed before the appearance of the final product. The developer of technical documentation should be directly involved in the choice of lexical units and technical terminology in several languages to eliminate possible problems of ambiguity, inconsistency in the transfer of information. The author points to the possibility of introducing the educational program “intercultural technical communication” in engineering universities, where key attention will be paid to the basics of technical communication, cultural and linguistic skills of at least three foreign languages [3].

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Technical communication is form of communication consisting in the presentation, publication and/or distribution of technical information. The main type of this activity is the preparation of technical documentation for a software or hardware product. It may be communicating about technical or specialized topics, communicating by using technology, such as web pages, help files, or social media sites or providing instructions about how to do something, regardless of how technical the task is or even if technology is used to create or distribute that communication. In Russia, the terms “technocommunicator” and “technocommunication” are relatively new, whereas in the US and in many Western countries, the profession “technical communicators” has long existed. They are also called “technical writers”. Essential duties of technical writers typically are: • Determine the needs of end users of technical documentation; • Study product samples and talk with product designers and developers; • Work with technical staff to make products easier to use and thus need fewer instructions; • Organize and write supporting documents for products; • Use photographs, drawings, diagrams, animation, and charts that increase users’ understanding • Select appropriate medium for message or audience, such as manuals or online videos • Standardize content across platforms and media • Gather usability feedback from customers, designers, and manufacturers • Revise documents as new issues arise [4]. The activities of professional centers, Associations for Technocommunication (Society for Technical Communication, European Association for Technical Communication) are known, and specialized journals are published (Journal of Business and Technical Communication). Moreover, there are generally accepted requirements for the language of technical documentation: it must be clear, accurate, accessible, informationally correct, concise. In Russian universities the practice of training techno-communicators can be found in one of the leading innovative engineering universities - Tomsk Polytechnic University. Since 1998 there has been an active development and introduction of professional communication courses in foreign languages in order to develop communication skills among technical students. For this purpose, the number of study hours for the discipline “Foreign Language” was increased more than three times [5]. Engineering education involves the formation of a professional engineering culture based on the understanding of sociocultural and humanitarian knowledge. It allows to evaluate the place and possible consequences of technical development in a wider sociocultural context [6]. Consequently foreign language training should be aimed at identifying the sociocultural meanings of technology and engineering activities and their modern reflection in terms of reducing the negative effects of engineering activity [7, 11].

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4 Actual or Anticipated Outcomes Foreign language training was organized on the base of the Kazan National Research Technological University with Bachelors of Power and Electrical Engineering Department and Medical Engineering Department. Students are proposed to learn French and German besides English using contrastive methods of teaching similar languages. Language training on a multilingual basis has allowed students to realize internship abroad, using several languages in different types of communication [8, 9]. Currently there is positive tendency of a growing interest to another foreign languages such as French, German, Spanish, Chinese and others at the Department of Foreign Languages for Professional Communication of Kazan National Research Technological University. According to interrogation more than 74% of students have the desire to learn one or two foreign languages optionally [10]. Furthermore, the international relations of the Republic in the field of petrochemical complex was analyzed, concerning foreign languages in demand to satisfy the request of large companies of Tatarstan.

5 Conclusions It has been proved that multilingualism has become a means of forming technocommunicational competence in the system of engineering training, and the technical communicative abilities of students have increased significantly. Technocommunicational competence is considered as a student’s skill in the field of search, critical analysis, synthesis, distribution, adaptation, and visualization of information on a multilingual basis for a wide audience of users, taking into account the socio-cultural characteristics of the countries producing a technical product. It is assumed that it is imperative to prepare students using the languages of the republic’s enterprises based on their international connections. Obviously in higher education the choice of foreign languages for further study will depend on many factors: the position of the language in the world, the trade and economic ties of the country or region, professional activity and personal preferences. The linguistic essence of the language is replaced by practical communicative properties, and foreign language training becomes professionally oriented. In an engineering university, foreign languages are conditioned by technical communication. In this case, the language will acquire new communicative properties aimed at understanding the national and cultural context of the countries-producers of a technical product and the specifics of work in engineering industries of other countries. Links between intercultural, professional and technical communications based on several foreign languages are increasing.

References 1. Federation of professional engineers FEANI. http://www.feani.org 2. Canadian Society of Professional Engineers. http://www.cspe.ca

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3. Yuste, E.: Language resources and the language professional. In: Proceedings of the First International Workshop in Language Resources for Translation Work and Research, pp. 8–9. ELRA, Pari (2002) 4. Society for Technical Communication. https://www.stc.org 5. Suntsova, E.: Technical communication as a necessary component of educational programs of Russian engineering universities. Vestnic TSPU 6(84), 8–13 (2009) 6. Gazizova, A.I., Siraeva, M.N., Trofimova, G.S.: Formal and non-formal education means of mastering foreign language skills. Soc. Sci. 10(6), 1324–1328 (2015) 7. Barabanova, S.V., Kaybiyaynen, A.A., Kraysman, N.V.: Digitalization of education in the global context. Vysshee Obrazovanie v Rossii (High. Educ. Russia) 2019(1), 94–103 (2019) 8. Ziyatdinova, J., Bezrukov, A., Osipov, P., Sanger, P.A., Ivanov, V.G.: Going globally as a Russian engineering university. In: ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings Volume 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Making Value for Society, Issue 122nd ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Making Value for Society (2015) 9. Bezrukov, A.: Flexible learning model for computer-aided technical translation. In: 2013 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2013, Article no. 6644680, pp. 673–675 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1109/icl.2013.6644680 10. Kraysman, N.V., Ziyatdinova, Y.N., Valeeva, E.E.: Advanced training in French with practical application in professional and scientific activities at KNRTU. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2015, Firenze, Italy, 20–24 September 2015, pp. 1091–1092, 4 November 2015 11. Shageeva, F.T., Bogoudinova, R.Z., Kraysman, N.V.: Poster: teachers-researchers training at technological university. In: 21st International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2018, Kos Island, Greece, 25–28 September 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 917, pp. 977–980 (2019)

Extracurricular Activities in Engineering College and Its Impact on Students’ Tolerance Formation Gulnaz Fakhretdinova(&), Liudmila Dulalaeva, and Ekaterina Tsareva Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The article deals with extracurricular activities that are considered to strengthen the interaction between the students and provide the essential skills for teamwork, conflict management and leadership. The paper aims to examine the role of extracurricular activities in the formation of students’ tolerance and to develop a pedagogical model of students’ tolerance beyond the classroom. These activities result in tolerance education and ability to perceive different cultures and views. Keywords: Tolerance formation
Educational work
Extracurricular activities
Students
Multicultural
Engineering school

1 The Urgency of the Problem The importance of the research is due to the current trends of social development which is caused by cardinal changes in sociocultural life of Russia. The influence of globalization process, current economic and political situation set the task of training students in multicultural environment, as well as developing their ability to communicate with people of different religions and ethnicities to ensure peaceful coexistence. Willingness to understand and perceive the diversity of ethnic, religious and cultural differences requires the skills of positive cross-cultural and inter-ethnic relations. And in this regard a modern multiethnic university should become an institution of a person’s moral purification and provide an international standard of education and stabilization of interethnic relations as the guarantor of the modern development of the society [1, 6]. Researchers also talk about the global challenges referring to the reforms in the national systems of education and discuss such characteristics of a competitive engineer which are based on universal human values, such as trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, good citizenship manifested through intercultural competence [14]. As it stated in [13] cross-cultural skills are of crucial importance for student’s professional activities as well as studying of foreign languages, they both help to provide the high level of forming intercultural communicative competence [12]. Moreover, dialogue of cultures, rapprochement and mutual enrichment of science and art, science and religion, the integration of scientific, technical, humanitarian and artistic and aesthetic education, the synthesis of discursive and emotionally shaped, systemic approach is synergistic and © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 143–150, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_15

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non-linear thinking are the essential conditions allowing to realize the potential of education, and it should be in the dominant sound [10]. In fact the learning environment of a higher educational institution is a multicultural society that forms the professional and personal qualities of students as well as it contributes to the formation of tolerance in a multi-ethnic professional environment. As it stated in [11] engineering universities are designed to train not just highly qualified engineers with certain amount of knowledge, but above all, people with a high level of scientific and professional competence, wide cultural overview, rich spiritual world, citizens and patriots. In other words graduates of engineering universities should be competent in the chosen professional field. It should be taken into account that at the present stage the moral quality of an individual such as tolerance is an integral competence of an engineer’s competence. Tolerance as a moral and spiritual category in modern conditions reflects the most current historical, socio-cultural, educational need, the degree of satisfaction of which depends on the present and the future of humanity [2]. In the “Declaration of Principles on Tolerance”, approved by the 28th session of the General Conference resolution of UNESCO in 1995, “tolerance”, which is derived from the Latin word “tolerantia”, is defined as “respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human” [15]. The Federal Law “On Education of the Russian Federation” and the Federal State Educational Standards for Higher Education also note the need to form the competencies of a future specialist in a multicultural environment. The problem of forming and developing tolerance is considered as one of the most important tasks of the modern educational system. The role of education in forming of tolerant person is very important that is why educational strategies and policies and all kinds of activities within and outside the classroom should be implemented with the most important principles of tolerance: respect for human rights and dignity. As stated in [3] tolerance becomes a significant social and professional quality reflecting the individual’s ability to respect other cultures, traditions, values, beliefs, the absence of stereotypes and prejudices. The aim of this research is to reveal the role of some extracurricular activities in engineering school by discussing our practice in developing and implementing these activities aimed at tolerance formation in students.

2 Background Educational extracurricular work at a university is defined as a type of joint activity of teachers and students, organized and carried out in extracurricular time and aimed at shaping the personality of a future specialist with basic qualities, including tolerance and empathy [5]. Researchers include here student’s moral education, their intellectual and emotional development, creativity and others [7]. Extracurricular activities promote students to work together and communicate with each other, while students have the opportunity to realize their creative potential. The successful formation of tolerance requires systematic educational work during extracurricular time in order to avoid arrogance and treachery; it should be aimed at the cultural values of peoples living both in the Republic of Tatarstan (Russia) and others who come to study from other states

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and abroad. Tatarstan is a multicultural republic in Russia, which is the territory of fusion of Slavic and Turkic cultures, of Christian and Muslim religions. The fact that migrants arriving from neighboring countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus shows the Turkic loyalty of the Tatar population and the degree of religious solidarity. According to the Department of the Migrant Service in Tatarstan, the greatest increase in immigrants come from Uzbekistan (33%), Tajikistan (10%), Azerbayzhdan (6%), Kazakhstan (5%), Kyrgyzstan and other countries [8]. Kazan National Research Technological University (KNRTU) is a multicultural educational platform with representatives of different ethnicities and cultures from neighboring regions of Tatarstan and abroad. Our study has covered 679 students from different years (Bachelors and Masters) who major in Social studies, Logistics and Conflict Management at the Faculty of Social and Technical Studies of KNRTU. Approximately 20% (135) of them are international students and that is why it is very important to promote positive inter-ethnic communication during extracurricular activities and show the dignity of every ethnicity, religion, race to students. In the course of working with students outside the classroom we implemented the pedagogical model of tolerance of students which can be described as a structured, value-oriented and holistic method of constructing a system of extracurricular activities in a multicultural engineering school. This pedagogical model for the tolerance formation of students in a multicultural engineering school is based on the principle of integration of national cultures and values to the content of extracurricular activities. This aspect defines the main aims of extracurricular activities as the formation of tolerance of students: – Formation of students’ ideas about the actual nature of tolerance; – Formation of students’ positive attitudes, interest in the values of other cultures and cultural differences of other nations; – The integration of cultural values of Russian, Tatar people and foreigners and the values of tolerance in the content of extracurricular activities.

3 Discussion and Results The objective of our study is to form a tolerant student ready for creative activity beyond the classroom through student’s interaction in an atmosphere of trust and respect the views, position, opinion and culture of others. In our study the extracurricular activities include such forms of work as competition, contests, foreign language weeks, friendship festivals, concerts, performances, tutoring and etc. Extracurricular activities we regard to have a whole range of benefits such as: – a productive break from study; – developing academic and soft skills, e.g. teamwork, boosting self-confidence, public speaking, management skills; – outside classroom activities are great to include on a resume as evidence of wellrounded interests and skills; – providing social opportunities.

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In our study we discuss the results of the most effective approaches and activities used at the Faculty of Social and Technical Studies aimed specifically at student’s tolerance formation. “Polyglot” competition is held in cooperation with Department of Foreign Languages for Professional Communication. The students are united in teams of 5 people; they prepare introduction videos and short presentations about themselves in advance as an application for participation. The competition consists of various quizzes, mainly about foreign languages, in particular English, and cultures, customs and traditions of Great Britain, the USA and other English-speaking countries. Researchers agree that a highly qualified specialist has to know foreign languages in order to have steady position in the world of severe competition, and has to work effectively in international business context [9]. One team consists of the representatives of different ethnicities and cultures and students collaborating with each other need to demonstrate their greatest strengths, tell about their talents and hobbies. Students participate in an intellectual quiz that not only checks the level of a foreign language it also focuses on knowledge of the cultural differences of the country of the target language. As a result students learn to build an effective dialogue with representatives of other ethnic groups, which forms a tolerant consciousness, they also realize that a foreign language acts as a kind of interaction bridge between representatives of different communities and learning the language affects history, religion, culture, art, mentality of Englishspeaking country people. They also have an opportunity to demonstrate their translation skills which as stated in Ref. [4] becoming more and more popular in the modern globalizing world. The Peoples’ Friendship Festival which has been held at KNRTU since 1989 by the initiative of the University Peoples’ Friendship Club. For over 20 years the Club has been engaged in educating young people to respect values, customs and traditions of various ethnic groups that helps to form students’ tolerance and culture of international communication. The club annually holds such holidays as Nauruz (a.k.a. Nowruz, known as the Persian New Year), Maslenitsa (a.k.a. Butter week, an Eastern religious and folk holiday), Nardugan (winter solstice in Central Asia cultures), literary and musical evenings, meetings with writers, Days of National Cultures. The participants of the Peoples’ Friendship Festival are university students from the Volga region, Ural region, countries of near and far abroad, representatives of the Assembly of Peoples of Tatarstan and national and cultural associations. The Peoples’ Friendship Festival helps students of different races and ethnicities to reveal their talents and becomes a common ground for cooperation and sharing experiences. The Military-Patriotic Song contest is dedicated to the victory of Soviet soldiers in the World War II and as a rule is organized right before the Victory Day (May 9th) by the efforts of the student self-government activists. Talented young performers have taken part in the competition for 17 years including students from different faculties and music schools students of Kazan who demonstrate their vocal abilities. It should be noted that this event contributes to the formation of national identity, enhances the feeling of patriotism among the younger generation, as such holidays as the Victory Day has a powerful potential in patriotic education of young people and strengthens inter-ethnic relations. For many, including representatives of the former Soviet Union countries who actively participate in this competition, military-patriotic songs are a

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tribute to those who gave their lives in the war, a basis for pride in victory and a common page in historical memory. “Freshman’s Day” and “Student’s Spring” festivals have several stages and end with a gala concert. 70% of the participants should be freshmen which is the main condition for participation in “Freshman’s Day” festival. Bachelor students and masters of all faculties of the Kazan National Research Technological University take part in “Student’s Spring” festival. Preparation for the festivals gives an excellent opportunity for students to get acquainted with each other and bring them closer. While working together they develop such qualities as artistry, good taste, sociability, patience and empathy within the team. During the concert students present different musical numbers and performances as a part of the Student Theater, while demonstrating various comical situations that can occur in the student environment. Vocal and dance performances feature dances and songs of peoples living in Russia and other countries. Such events allow students to identify both human values and to compare different cultures, mentalities and spheres of life of different peoples. It should be emphasized that such festivals create a favorable emotional environment and motivate students to take actions such as learning the dances, preparing musical accompaniment, selecting national costumes and performing before the public. These activities help to develop creativity and artistic talents among students as a result the hidden potential of students could be harnessed. “Freshman’s Day” remains a vivid and warm memory of their student life for many years as the process of working together on performances helps strengthen relationships and inculcate the values of cooperation. Moreover, such events provide an opportunity for students to show their organizational skills and abilities in practice. Competition of talent and beauty “Miss and Mr. Faculty of Social and Technical Studies”, traditionally held in early March right after the Defenders Day (February 23rd, unofficially it is called Men’s Day) and before the International Women’s Day (March 8th). The main objective of the event is to reveal the creative potential of students and provide the opportunities to adjust themselves with other people. In addition to vocal and dance performances, participants demonstrate the ability to play various musical instruments, sports tricks, poems of their own composition and even culinary skills. The competition also empowers features and traits like extempore expression, speech fluency, co-ordination and communication and enables to groom the students for future leadership. Along with Russian students, representatives of different countries also apply for participation, which makes it a multicultural event. Foreign participants often emphasize the culture and traditions of their countries: they wear national clothes and headwear, play music instruments, and perform songs in their native language, show national dance performances - all this contributes to the formation of a tolerant attitude towards people of different ethnic groups. Tutoring plays a leading role in the tolerance formation. Tutors face the task of educating students to see themselves as citizens of the world. A tutor is expected to take such practical measures that would help future engineers overcome selfishness and

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counteract harmful nationalist influences. Tutoring helps to bring up a sense of responsibility for the present and the future of the world in which students live. The absence or lack of knowledge about peoples and their national cultures and traditions entail prejudices towards them. First of all, the tutor should create the necessary conditions for the formation of the creative potential of all subjects of the educational process in the course of extracurricular work. The implementation of this goal contributes to the creation of a favorable emotional background for students. Tutor should also take into account the individual abilities of each student. All abovementioned activities are aimed to form important skills such as building relationships, cooperation, teamwork, and the ability to persuade and make changes, conflict management, and leadership – all these social skills we consider to contribute to the tolerance formation. – Relationship building is an ability to create social groups and maintain a climate in them that is favorable for building mutually beneficial relations with teachers, and peers, friendship through mutual respect. Relationship building skills are very important for self-realization, providing feeling of confidence and respect. – Cooperation is the effective way of working with other people to achieve common goals based on a single mission. Students should be prepared to cooperate with each other to create a favorable atmosphere and to achieve one goal. When students have a clear idea that cooperation can’t be without interaction and sharing experience and knowledge, then success is ensured. – Teamwork is defined as the ability to work in a team where such features as respect, willingness to cooperate, organizational skills, the ability to attract all team members to active participation, trust, determination, team spirit are crucial. Having such atmosphere teammates will always be ready to maintain and protect the reputation of the group and be confident in each other. – Ability to persuade and influence others using comprehensive arguments and to attract team member’s attention is one of the main skills in teamwork. – Students who manage conflicts are able to negotiate and resolve disputes and it allows them to cope with various kinds of tense situations. The ability to effectively manage conflicts develops personality and makes it possible to avoid them and maintain harmonious relationships with people of various culture and religion background as well. – A good leader is a person who always inspires and guides groups of people, maintains team spirit. The leadership intends having enthusiasm, public speaking skills, a deep understanding of the goals, objectives and requirements for a team. The Table 1 below shows that all social skills we are considering are able to develop in all types of extracurricular activities and influence on tolerance formation if they are organized properly:

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Table 1. Development of social skills of students in extracurricular activities and their impact on tolerance formation Types of extracurricular activities – Student’s Spring Festival – Freshman’s Day – Volunteer Movement – The Peoples’ Friendship Festival – Military-Patriotic Song contest – “Polyglot” competition – “Miss and Mr. Faculty of Social and Technical Studies” – My profession is my world – Sports Day – Tutoring

Developed social skills Building relationships Cooperation Teamwork The ability to persuade and make changes Conflict management Leadership

Moreover, the acquaintance with other cultural features, vocabulary building in the target language is necessary for the initial stage of adaptation in a foreign culture, collection and study of information about the cultural identity of the other countries contributes to the tolerant attitude towards a foreign culture. Our study has led to the conclusion that one of the most important tasks of engineering universities is the formation of a tolerant attitude. That is why it is necessary to regulate the activities of students by creating situations that ensure the development of their restraint, flexibility and tolerance. Education in the spirit of tolerance opposes the influence that causes a feeling of fear and alienation towards others. Such upbringing contributes to the formation of independent thinking skills, critical thinking and making judgments based on moral values in engineering students. In the modern world, higher education is faced with the task not only to train a highly qualified engineer, but also to find effective ways to improve the quality of extracurricular activities of the student. Therefore, the activation of educational extracurricular work with engineering school students is the most important condition for creating a positive student environment and reducing negative phenomena in the process of communication with representatives of other ethnic groups and cultures. Forming a tolerant attitude and behavior by attracting students to extracurricular activities in a multicultural educational environment is an important condition in the education of universal human values. During our whole academic year, such faculty events are held at the Faculty of Social and Technical Studies that are aimed precisely at developing tolerance and realizing that respect for and acceptance of the worldview of other ethnicities is the key to a successful person.

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References 1. Barabanova, S.V., Kaybiyaynen, A.A., Kraysman, N.V.: Digitalization of education in the global context. Vysshee Obrazovanie v Rossii High. Educ. Russia 1, 94–103 (2019) 2. Bardier, G.L.: Social Psychology of Tolerance. Publishing House of St. Petersburg University Press, Saint Petersburg (2005) 3. Beketova, A.P., Kuprina, T.V., Petrikova, A.: Development of students’ intercultural communicative tolerance in the university multilingual educational environment. Educ. Sci. J. 2(20), 108–124 (2018) 4. Bezrukov, A.: Flexible learning model for computer-aided technical translation. In: 2013 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Article no. 6644680, pp. 673–675 (2013) 5. Bogdanova, A.I.: Formation of tolerance of students in multicultural educational environment of higher educational institution, p. 221. Ph.D. thesis in Pedagogy, Krasnoyarsk, Russia (2015) 6. Cheverikina, E.A., Rakhimgarayeva, R.M., Sadovaya, V.V., Zakirova, V.G., Starodubets, O. D., Klemes, V.S.: Socio-psychological characteristics of college students who are prone to addictions. Am. J. Appl. Sci. 11(8), 1412–1417 (2014) 7. Drescher, Yu.N., Shosheva, T.V.: Prevention of extremism and terrorism by means of cultural and leisure institutions, p. 112, Kazan, Russia (2016) 8. Garaeva, A.M., Nizamova, L.R.: Muslim migrants in the Tatarstan Republic: religious solidarity or social exclusion? Revista Publicando 5(16(1)), 631–639 (2018) 9. Kraysman, N.V., Ziyatdinova, Y.N., Valeeva, E.E.: Advanced training in French with practical application in professional and scientific activities at KNRTU. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Firenze, Italy, 20–24 September 2015, pp. 1091–1092 (2015) 10. Nurutdinova, A.R., Perchatkina, V.G., Zinnatullina, L.M., Zubkova, G.I., Galeeva, F.T.: Innovative teaching practice: traditional and alternative methods (challenge and implications). Int. J. Environ. Sci. Educ. 11(10), 3807–3819 (2016) 11. Rakhmatullaeva, F.I.: Students’ tolerance formation through extracurricular activities (based on materials of Republic of Tajikistan universities), p. 23. Abstract of Ph.D. thesis in Pedagogy, Dushanbe, Tajikistan (2013) 12. Volkova, E.V.: Different approaches to the problems of intercultural communicative competence. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning and 42-nd International IGIP Symposium on Engineering Pedagogy, Book of Abstracts, 25–27 September 2013, pp. 456–457 (2013) 13. Ziyatdinova, J., Bezrukov, A., Sanger, P.A, Osipov, P.: Cross cultural diversity in engineering professionals - Russia, India, America. In: ASEE 2016 International Forum, Paper ID #17591 (2016) 14. Ziyatdinova, J.N., Osipov, P.N., Bezrukov, A.N.: Global challenges and problems of Russian engineering education modernization. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Article no. 7318061, pp. 397–400 (2015) 15. http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13175&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_ SECTION=201.html

Video Games and Their Correlation to Empathy How to Teach and Experience Empathic Emotion Ossy Dwi Endah Wulansari(B) , Johanna Pirker, Johannes Kopf, and Christian Guetl Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 16c, Graz, Austria [email protected], {johanna.pirker,johannes.kopf,c.guetl}@tugraz.at http://www.isds.tugraz.at

Abstract. This article focuses on how video games may trigger empathy. On the one hand, globalization and our fast-changing, globalized world have resulted in an empathy deficit, a situation that calls desperately for a new approach to tackle the empathy issue. On the other hand, recent statistical data has shown that players in some countries today spend on average more than 4 h weekly playing games. Most past research has found that playing violent games decreases pro-social behavior. However, only a few studies investigate the effects of neutral or prosocial video games. Our study aims to identify several characteristics of four games that seem to promote positive moral and empathy and involves 40 subjects. Specifically, we look into the effects of variation of number of interventions and the correlation with perceived presence and immersion. The research reported in this paper covers background and related work on empathy research, existing work on video games for experiencing empathy and the layout of the study. The findings of this initial study on four pro-social games suggest that sufficient story-line of video games can positively impacts aspects such as the ‘perspective taking’ of players. Findings also indicate that multiple interventions and higher perceived immersion dent to increase the level of empathy. This research may contribute to supporting the promotion and development of the ‘games for good’ or ‘games for change’ campaign. Keywords: Empathy Presence

1

· Pro-social · Video games · Immersive ·

Introduction

Empathy is an essential skill, which is of growing importance in our modern and globalized society. Empathy helps persons to cope with interpersonal conflicts both at home and work. It helps us to understand non-verbal communication and supports us to predict the actions and reactions of other people more accurately. Empathy allows us to become happier and can lead to greater personal and c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020  M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 151–163, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_16

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professional success (Mc. Donald and Messinger 2011). However, research has also shown that empathy levels have diminished as a result of lifestyle changes. This includes elements such an increased “screen-time”, information overload, and lack of attention to character or moral development in primary education (Elmore and Harden 2013). Exploring ways to experience and teach empathic emotions are thus becoming increasingly important (Dohrenwend 2018). Empathy experiences can be triggered by watching movies, reading (fiction) literature, consuming storytelling content, and playing video games or simulators. Mark (2019) stated that “A book or movie can show us what it is like to be in a character’s shoes, but it is the video game that can put us into those shoes”. Although several games related to empathy have been built and released, there is still a lack of evidence that they are a sufficient tool for teaching and experiencing empathy and to link the game experience to real life situations. Most video games do not create empathy, because their chosen storylines do not trigger deep psychological involvement in the characterization (Manney 2008). In response to this it is thus important to analyze those media and applications, which are known to create empathy and to identify the elements, which can be used as design tools to create experiences that do trigger empathy. The relevance of empathy research in the game domain is supported by statistics showing that people in some countries, such as the USA, the UK, France, Japan, and South Korea, spend more than 4 h a week playing video games. It was found that among the countries studied, UK gamers spend 7,5 h a week playing video games, while South Korean gamers spend an average of 4,42 h a week on playing games (Gough 2019). More than 2,5 billion people worldwide play video games (TGGMR 2016). Video games are often blamed as being a cause of addiction, aggression, and anti-social behavior and many studies have examined correlations between violent behavior and video games with results that are often highly controversial and diverse. Anderson and Warburton (2012), for instance, claim that indicators of aggression are positively related to video game violence exposure. According to a study by Krahe and Moeler (2010), playing violent video games, increases physical aggression and reduces affective empathy. In contrast, several studies also show that there is no link between violent behavior and the playing of video games. The Oxford University researchers Przybylski and Weinstein (2019) showed on the basis of a study with 1004 participants who play violent video games that there is no evidence for relating violent game engagement to aggressive behavior. Nevertheless, playing a video game or watching a movie triggers emotions and these media can be used as a powerful tool to trigger empathy. Greitemeyer et al. (2010) explored the effect of playing video games on empathy and pleasure taken in the misfortune of another person (“schadenfreude” or malicious joy is the German term for this). Their research showed that playing pro-social video games can decrease antisocial aspects and increase the pro-social aspects. Furthermore, they found that exposure to pro-social video games can strengthen interpersonal empathy and also reduce schadenfreude. The research and development of digital games

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for teaching prosocial and moral development are still limited and in an early stage. More research is needed to understand the potential digital games have for supporting specific learning outcomes. A study on Philosophy by Coeckelbergh (2007) stated that empirical research is required on the relation between moral development and games in terms of empathy and cosmopolitanism. In this context it is thus essential to explore and discuss further the potential of immersive video games to trigger empathy. Many pedagogical experts believe that promising methods exist for using technologies such as web-based applications, interactive media, and games to teach empathy. They suggest resources and technologies which are already available and used by young people should be explored and dedicated to promoting empathy in order to turn away from the trends of narcissism, loneliness, and isolation. In this paper we thus aim at investigating the potential of video games for teaching and experiencing empathy in order to address our main research question, which concerns the characteristics of games that promote positive moral and social behavior in the context of empathic abilities.

2

Empathy and Video Games

The popularity of video games has triggered concern among educators, policymakers and parents. Studies have been conducted in the pedagogical field that investigate the correlation between games and empathy. Most educators who have invited students to play video games have done so as a means of allowing students to experience the value of understanding the perspective of other people. 2.1

Empathy

Empathy can be defined in many contexts and definitions. In general terms, empathy is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. It also defines the understanding and sharing the emotional state of another person, the projection of one’s own personality into the personality of this other person and to feel with the heart, see with the eyes, and listen with the ears of another person (Batson et al. 1997; Eisenberg and Eggum 2009). According to Davis (1980), empathy has four components: empathic concern is an other-oriented feeling of concern for the misfortunes of other people and a sense of sympathy with them. Fantasy is a respondent’s tendency to transpose themselves imaginatively into the emotions and actions of fictitious characters in books, movies, or plays. Personal distress is a self-oriented feeling of personal anxiety and unease intense in interpersonal settings. Perspective taking is the tendency to adopt the psychological point of view of others spontaneously. In a study which explores immersion in persuasive games, the authors found that immersion creates stronger emotion and deeply personal experiences (Hafner and Jansz 2018). Furthermore, the result of this study suggests a positive relationship between immersion and narratives in interactive media that support

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player involvement. Their research was focused on persuasive games which target social impacts such as conflict resolution, humanitarian crisis, poverty, war, and terrorism. They found that narrative depth, identification, and perceived realism contribute to the players’ immersive experiences. 2.2

Empathy in Video Games

Huizinga (1983) defines games as “an activity which proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to rules freely accepted, and outside the sphere of necessity or material utility. The play-mood is one of rapture and enthusiasm and is sacred or festive by the occasion. A feeling of exaltation and tension accompanies the action, mirth and relaxation follow”. Only limited research has been conducted into exploring the effect of playing pro-social games and the influence this has on behavior, the attitude of players, or moral development such as emotional intelligence or empathic ability (Happ 2013). Empathy has been explored as a mediator for pro-social behavior in a video games context (Prot et al. 2014). In the research area of psychology, the role of empathy as a moderator between the behavior and the corresponding different social situations of the participants has been studied (Watson 2016). In a couple of studies, the participants were invited to imagine what someone else or they themselves would feel like in a specific situation (Batson et al. 1997). On the other hand, the rise of an empathy games genre has triggered some interesting issues about how exactly player should playing them and players’ psychological responses to these games (Solberg 2016). “Empathy games” appear to have a great potential for raising awareness about various real-world issues. In the past two decades news reports have been warned of the dangers implicit in video games. By contrast, Gee (2008) asserted that games embody many of the promising features that should be sought in learning environments. Research has been conducted in many directions to investigate positive effect of serious games. One philosophy study on computer games suggested that the fundamentals of affects in computer games are goal status evaluations and empathy with game characters (Lankoski 2007). Furthermore, Lankoski stated that games with characters can influence the emotions of players using affective simulation and the affective expressions of characters where the implied goals take a primary role. A research of Bachen et al. (2012) examines the impact of ‘real life’ games that help players to develop inter-cultural knowledge on global empathy. Players acquire experience of what a life could be like in another country, educational system, or when faced with diseases and natural disaster, and in the process they identify with and experience other countries. Cognitive experiences and development might affect the development of experience of global empathy (Bachen et al. 2012) Another study by Vaughan et al. (2011) investigated effectiveness of gaming in bullying behavior. In this research, computer games are used as bullying prevention tools that provide individualized and cumulative learning of pro-social, attitudes and social skills, which may help to abate bullying behavior and shift

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the social norms into class. They stated that educational gaming is developing as a promising area that promotes the effectiveness of an early bullying prevention program for elementary school students. This program will help pupils to develop healthy social relationships throughout their lives. Happ (2013) found that pro-social game content stirs pro-social behavior and that the effect of empathy depends mainly on the game outcome and the game character. A study by Heron and Belford (2014) stated that there are considerable question marks as to whether games can realistically have any genuine impact on the moral perspective of the players. Furthermore, he stated that more studies are needed to specify whether and how games can support and develop empathy. A study has been conducted to find the potential of serious games for mental heart treatment. One of the analyzed games, ‘That Dragon Cancer’, tells the true story of a five years old child who died due to terminal cancer. His parents developed this game to describe the experience of having a child diagnosed with cancer. This game features spoken word poetry, and themes of faith, hope, despair, helplessness and love which may affect the emotions. The mother Amy Green argued for art therapy. She concluded that video games are an important art form and that they are very useful in this area. Furthermore, Green stated that “People focus on the unproductive escapism in games, but that inherent abstraction can help us to experience someone else private grief” (Miller 2015). Miller suggested that further research in this area is both promising and necessary. The puzzle game ‘Old Man’s Journey’ was mentioned in the list of ‘games we need’ by the screen therapy blog which is dedicated to exploring how players can use the time they spend on games to strengthen their emotional intelligence. This game has not only received a couple of awards for its excellent visuals like the ‘Apple Design Award’, but also for the narrative techniques it uses like the ‘Emotional Games Award’. This is due to the fact that this game triggers empathy as it lets the player feel with the old man, who puts a lot of effort into reaching his grandchild. Old Man’s Journey is an adventure game which tells the life story of an old fisherman who lives in a seaside village, his precious moments and his losses. This game communicates profound feelings of hope, bliss and regret. In other words, this game has ‘emotional impact’ on the feelings of players (Ann 2018). Another study on the perspective of moral game design has been conducted by de Smale et al. (2017). In this study they analyzed the survival game ‘This War of Mine’, which was developed and published by 11 bit studio. The game, inspired by the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, differs from most warthemed video games by focusing on the civilian experience of war rather than on front-line combat. The authors discovered that in order to create a coherent game-world, it is important to conduct elaborate background research about the topic of the game, in this case war.

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By the same token, an autobiography might be a new approach, which can be applied to a game so as to make the players understand and feel the same as another person whose life story and experiences are being related. Path Out is an example of an adventure game inspired by the autobiography of a young Syrian artist who escaped from civil war in his country (Meier 2017). This game is an ‘eye-opener’ for players to better understand the actions of a refugee. Abdullah Karam, the protagonist of Path Out, comments the game scenes himself as is common practice in YouTube videos, an element which adds to the immersion. Apart from being the main character in the game, Karam is also the game artist of Path Out.

3

Evaluation

Based on our initial motivation and findings from literature outlined above, our aim is to investigate how pro-social video games can influence the level of empathy. To this end we cover in the remainder of this section study outline, findings and discussion. 3.1

Study Design

Our research is focused on the influence of video games on the empathy level, more specifically the impact of playing neutral or pro-social video games on empathy skill development. This study addresses the following research questions: – Can pro-social video game experience stimulate empathy? And how influences the number of interventions effects on empathy level? – Is there a correlation between immersion and presence with empathy? In order to answer the research questions above, we conducted two experiments toward four neutral or pro-social games getting involved a group of school and university student. 3.2

Setting and Instrument

Based on the literature survey outlined above, the study is based on existing work on four pro-social games: That Dragon Cancer, Path Out, Old Man’s Journey and This War of Mine. The target age groups varies from roughly teenagers till young adults and is accordingly considered in the study group formation. Three standardized and validated self-report questionnaires are applied in the study for measuring perceives level of empathy, presence and immersion: – Interpersonal Reactivity Index Questionnaire (IRIQ) IRIQ measures four sub-dimensions of empathy based on seven items each: (1) Fantasy measures how strongly the player identifies with fictitious characters. (2) Perspective-taking dimension measures how strongly the player

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adopts perspective or viewpoint. (3) Empathic concern looks into the degree of experiencing feelings for others. (4) Personal distress measures the feelings of discomfort and anxiety witnessing negative experiences of others. Each question of the IRI questionnaire (IRIQ) is multiple choice using a five-point Likert scale (Davis 1980). – Immersive Tendency Questionnaire (ITQ) The ITQ was created by Witmer & Singer in 1998. This questionnaire assesses immersive tendencies by the feeling of deep involvement in media and games usage. ITQ is a multiple choice questionnaire with a seven-point Likert scale (Witmer and Singer 1998). – Presence Questionnaire (PQ) The PQ assesses the sense of presence or subjective experience of being in a specific environment or one particular place (Witmer and Singer 1996). PQ is designed as multiple choice questionnaire with a seven-point Likert scale. Following the overall goals of our research, the study is partitioned into two experiments, looking into different user groups and variations of the number of interventions. Experiment 1. The aim of experiment 1 is to assess a short-term influence of playing neutral or pro-social video games towards the empathy skill. Sixteen participants were classified into four groups depending on their age. Each group was then asked to play one of four video games, whereby the age rating of the game was matched with the given group age. The chosen games were ‘That Dragon Cancer’ for group 1 (10–13 years old), ‘Path Out’ for group 2 (14–16 years old), ‘Old Man’s Journey’ for group 3 (17–18 years old) and ‘This War of Mine’ for group 4 (over 18 years old). First, each participant had to fill out the IRIQ as a pre-test. In the next step, each participant was asked to play the game assigned to his group for one to two hours on his or her own. Once the participants finished the previous task, they were asked to redo the IRIQ questionnaire as post-test. In the next step, we compared the pre-test against the post-test for each participant and analyzed the responses of the IRIQ in order to measure the impact of playing those four video games. Experiment 2. The second experiment focuses on multiple interventions and the influence on empathy experience in three selected games. Also, this experiment investigates the correlation of the perceived presence and immersion with the reported empathy experience. In the first step, twenty-four selected participants were asked to fill out the IRIQ as a pre-test. The participants were then divided randomly into three groups. Each group was asked to play one of three games, namely ‘Path Out’, ‘This war of Mine’ and ‘Old mans’ journey’. Subjects are asked to play the assigned games more than one time on his or her own. After the participants played the game multiple times on average some two hours, they were asked to

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complete the post-test by filling in three standardized questionnaires: IRIQ, PQ and ITQ. In this experiment we selected only three games because participants have to fill out ITQ and PQ questionnaires, which are sufficient for players over 14 years old, while ‘That dragon cancer’ is relevance for 10–13 years old. Finally the data analysis has been performed with a main focus in influence empathy level and its correlation with presence and immersion level. 3.3

Study Participants

We recruited forty pupils and college students in Lampung Province, Indonesia, who are familiar with video games and spend an average time of 2.95 h per week playing video games. Participants are teenagers or young adults in the age range of 10–19 years. A demographic overview shown in Table 1. Table 1. Demographic overview of students

3.4

Demographic aspects

Experiment 1 Experiment2

Age range

10 to 19

Age average in years

14.63

16 to 19 17.29

Standard deviations of age 2.16

0.95

Total participants

16 (100%)

24 (100%)

Female

7 (43.75%)

4 (16.67%)

Male

9 (56.25%)

20 (83.33%)

Number of interventions

Single

Mulitple

Findings and Discussion

As for experiment 1, the reported level of empathy of 16 subjects from pretest M = 96.56 (SD = 13.47) and post-test M = 98.06 (SD = 13.18) do not show notable improvements after one intervention with one of the four selected games (see also Table 2). More specifically, there were 9 (56.3%) who had shown an increasing IRIQ score on the post-test, 2 (12.5%) participants had the same score and 5 (31.2%) participants have a decreasing IRIQ score (see also Fig. 1). As for experiment 2, the reported level on empathy after multiple interventions has increased slightly higher compared to experiment 1. Thus, the empathy level or 24 subjects has risen from pre-test M = 94.54 (SD = 11.56) to post-test M = 98.17 (SD = 16.35) after playing one of tree games multiple times (see also Table 2). More specifically, 14 (58.3%) subjects have shown a higher and 10 (41.7%) had a decreasing IRIQ score (see also Fig. 2). Findings also show a perceived level of presence of M = 156.8 (SD = 13.4) and immersion of M = 128.8 (SD = 11.3), individual level of the subjects are also illustrated in Fig. 3. Focusing further on the influence of perceived presence (PQ) and immersion (ITQ) on the empathy level playing one of the selected games, it can be reported that the highest level of correlation is between the perceived presence and immersion level with an correlation factor of 0.641.

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Fig. 1. Experiment 1: data analysis of four video games related to empathy based on a single intervention and 16 participants between 10 and 19 years old

Fig. 2. Experiment 2: data analysis of three video games related to empathy based on multiple interventions and 24 participants between 16 and 19 years old

Such a correlation is expected as the perceived presence and immersion support each other. As for the correlation with reported empathy level after playing the game, findings reveal a higher correlation factor of 0.408 with immersion levels, compared to the lower correlation factor of 0.322 for the presence level. This indicates, that inducing a higher feeling of immersion supports may positively support a higher feeling of empathy.

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Fig. 3. Experiment 2: correlation between IRI, presence and immersive score

Finally, some qualitative findings from unstructured interviews of selected participants after playing one of the games are summarized. Subjects stated that the game they played did not have a significant impact on their empathy experience due to either an experienced short or unclear story-line. This might be mainly caused of the limited time and number of interventions. Also language barriers might have influenced the perceived experience. On the positive side, they liked basically the activity and paying a game on raining awareness on such aspects. Replies also revealed, that even the limited time, such games can support to change the player’s perspective and induce the player’s concern of character and the situation. Table 2. Data analysis of video games experiments IRIQ score

Experiment 1 Experiment2

Mean (pre-test)

96,56

94,54

Standard deviations 13,47

11,56

Mean (post-test)

98,06

98,17

Standard deviations 13,18

16,35

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Conclusions and Future Work

Empathy is an essential skill, which is of growing importance in our modern and globalized society to solve intercultural conflicts and support international collaborations. Decreasing level of empathy caused by life style changes calls fro new forms to experience and event train empathy. Video games in general can change and trigger emotions, pro-social video games in general are perceived to induce empathy. This research has conducted initial studies on the effects of playing pro-social video games. Specifically the level of empathy and correlations with perceived presence and immersion has been investigated based on single and multiple interventions. Tue to the limitations of small numbers of subjects in two experiments, engagement in pro-social video games can positively support the raise of the empathy level. Also a recognized positive correlation between perceived level of empathy and immersion provides room for further investigation on how game story, game type and game elements can support the feeling of empathy. In future research, a more detailed study with a larger user group is planned, which looks specifically into gender aspects and the sub-dimensions of Interpersonal Reactivity Index Questionnaire (Davis 1980). Also variations of player behaviour and the perceived level of empathy is a subject of further investigations.

References Anderson, C.A., Warburton, W.A.: The impact of violent video games: an overview. In: Warburton, W., Braunstein, D. (eds.) Growing Up Fast and Furious: Reviewing the Impacts of Violent and Sexualised Media on Children, pp. 56–84. The Federation Press, Annandale (2012) Ann: Games We Need: Old Man’s Journey. Screen Therapy Review, 5 March 2018. https://screentherapyblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/05/old-mans-journey/ Bachen, C.M., Hern´ andez-Ramos, P.F., Raphael, C.: Simulating REAL LIVES: promoting global empathy and interest in learning through simulation games. Simul. Gaming 43, 437–460 (2012) Batson, C.D., Polycarpou, M.P., Jones, E.H., Imhoff, H.I., Mitchener, E.C.: Empathy and attitudes: can feeling for a member of a stigmatized group improve feeling toward the group? J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 72(1), 105–118 (1997) Coeckelbergh, M.: Violent computer games, empathy and cosmopolitanism. J. Ethic Inf. Technol. 9(3), 219–231 (2007) Davis, M.H.: A multidimensional approach to individual differences in empathy. JSAS Catalog Sel. Doc. Psychol. 10(85), 2–17 (1980) de Smale, S., Kors, M.J.L., Sandovar, A.M.: The case of this war of mine: a production studies perspective on moral game design. Games Cult. 14(4), 387–409 (2017) Dohrenwend, A.M.: Defining empathy to better teach, measure, and understanding its impact. Acad. Med. 93(12), 1754–1756 (2018) Eisenberg, N., Eggum, N.D.: Empathic responding: sympathy and personal distress. In: Decety, J., Ickes, W. (eds.) The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, pp. 71–83. MIT Press, Cambridge (2009)

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Elmore, C.A., Harden, N.K.G.: The influence of supportive parenting and racial socialization messages on African American youth behavioural outcome. J. Child Fam. 22(13), 63–75 (2013) Gee, J.P.: Learning and games. In: Salen, K. (ed.) The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. The John D. and Cathere T. McArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008) Gough, C.: Video Game and Industry: Statistic and Fact, 12 August 2019. https:// www.statista.com/topics/868/video-games/ Greitemeyer, T., Osswald, S., Brauer, M.: Playing prosocial video games increases empathy and decreases schadenfreude. Emotion 10(6), 796–802 (2010) Hafner, M., Jansz, J.: The players’ experiences of immersion in persuasive games: a study of my life as a refugee and peacemaker. Int. J. Serious Games 5(4), 63–79 (2018) Happ, C.: Empathy in video games and other media. Ph.D. dissertation, Psychology Department of Philipps Universitaet Marburg (2013) Heron, M., Belford, P.: It’s only a games: ethics, empathy and identification in game morality systems. Comput. Games J. 3(1), 34–52 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/ BF03392356 Huizinga, J.: Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Elements in Culture. Beacon Press, Boston (1983) Krahe, B., Moeler, I.: Longitudinal effect of media violence on aggression and empathy among German adolescents. J. Appl. Dev. Psychol. 31(5), 401–409 (2010) Lankoski, P.: Goals, affects, and empathy in games. In: The Proceeding of Philosophy of Computer Games, pp. 39–55. Springer (2007) Manney, P.J.: Empathy in the time of technology: how storytelling is the key to empathy. J. Evol. Technol. 19(1), 51–61 (2008) Mark, R.: Other People’s Shoes, 18 February 2019. https://magic.wizards.com/en/ articles/archive/making-magic/other-peoples-shoes-2019-02-18 McDonald, N., Messinger, D.: The development of empathy: how, when, and why. In: Acerbi, A., Lombo, J.A., Sanguineti, J.J. (eds.) Free Will, Emotions, and Moral Actions: Philosophy and Neuroscience in Dialogue. IF-Press, London (2011) Meier, A.: A Games Lets You Navigate an Artist’s Flight from Syria, 20 September 2017. https://hyperallergic.com/399758/path-out-game-causa-creations/ Miller, S.M.: The potential of Serious Games as Mental Health Treatment. University Honors Theses. Paper 148 (2015) Prot, S., Anderson, C.A., Gentile, D.A., Brown, S.C., Swing, E.L.: The positive negative effects of video games play. In: Jordan, A.B., Romer, D. (eds.) Media and the WellBeing of Children and Adolescents, pp. 109–128. Oxford University Press, New York (2014) Przybylski, A.K., Weinstein, N.: Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents’ aggressive behaviour: evidence from a registered report. R. Soc. Open Sci. 6(2), 171–174 (2019) Solberg, D.: The Problem with Empathy Games, 19 January 2016. https://killscreen. com/articles/the-problem-with-empathy-games/ The Global Games Market Reaches $99.6 Billion in 2016, Mobile Generating 37%, 1 April 2016. https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/ Vaughan, A.R., Pepler, S.B., Craig, W.: Quest for the golden rule: an effective social skills promotion and bullying prevention program. Comput. Educ. 56(1), 166–175 (2011)

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Watson, J.C.: The role of empathy in psychotherapy: theory, research, and practice. In: Cain, D.J., Keenan, K., Rubin, S. (eds.) Humanistic Psychotherapies: Handbook of Research and Practice, pp. 115–145. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (2016). https://doi.org/10.1037/14775-005 Witmer, B., Singer, M.J.: Measuring presence in virtual environments: a presence questionnaire. Presence 7(3), 225–240 (1998) Witmer, B., Singer, M.J.: Immersive Tendencies Questionnaire. Revised by UQO Cyber-psychology Lab (1996)

Proposal of an Interactive IPTV Platform to Improve the Quality of Service of E-learning Platforms Ulrich Hermann Sèmèvo Boko(&), Bessan Melckior Dégboé, Samuel Ouya, and Gervais Mendy Laboratory LIRT, Higher Polytechnic School, University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Dakar, Senegal [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The objective of this paper is to contribute to improve the interactivity and quality of service of the e-learning platforms by using the power of IPTV. To do this, we propose a highly interactive elearning platform. This platform, based on FFmpeg, Tvheadend and Verto-FreeSwitch, allows the teacher to deliver an online course with a better quality of service. The FFmpeg streaming server performs MPEG-TS encoding and allows the teacher to broadcast the multimedia (audio/video) stream from his webcam in unicast to the Tvheadend server. This interactive IPTV’s server carries out a multicast of the stream for learners. With a web browser or an IPTV client, students can follow the teacher’s explanations and interact in real time; thanks to the VertoFreeSwitch module. The use of this solution allowed students to go to any Open Digital Space (ENO) of the Virtual University of Senegal (UVS) and follow a quality online courses without buying an internet package. Keywords: E-learning


Interactive IPTV
FreeSwitch

1 Introduction Previous research has shown that interactivity between the actors of distance learning reduces the feeling of isolation among learners. This is why in recent years, research on the integration of real-time communication solutions into ODL platforms has become very popular. Several approaches have been proposed for the real-time broadcasting of audio/video streams as part of distance learning [1, 2]. Although existing solutions are effective, they generate a loss of interactivity on the part of learners. Also, in a best effort IP network [3], providing streaming services must be done while ensuring an acceptable level of packet loss. Indeed, the distribution of multimedia content is quite demanding in terms of network capacity, especially because bandwidth is shared and videos consume a large amount of bandwidth. To meet these challenges, we propose a highly interactive IPTV platform that guarantees optimal service quality through a judicious choice of encoding methods. Based on FFmpeg, Tvheadend and FreeSwitch, the solution allows a teacher to deliver © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 164–171, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_17

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an online course with a better quality of service. The FFmpeg streaming server performs MPEG-TS encoding and allows the teacher to stream a multimedia stream (audio/video) in unicast to the IPTV Tvheadend server. The latter carries out a multicast of this flow for learners. Using a web browser or an IPTV client, students can follow the teacher’s explanations and interact in real time using the Verto-FreeSwitch module. The rest of the article is structured as follows: Sect. 2 provides an overview of previous work on Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA). Section 3 describes the technologies used to implement the proposed platform. Section 4 presents the architecture of the proposed solution. Section 5 describes the methodology for implementing the ZeroConf Discovery Web App platform. Finally, Sect. 6 provides the conclusion and future work.

2 Related Works Online learning has become a constantly evolving field of research. Several approaches have been proposed for the real-time broadcasting of audio/video streams as part of distance learning [1, 2]. The authors [4] propose a platform based on IPTV and adapted to distance learning. This solution allows the distribution of high-definition video content to a large number of users. However, the proposed solution leads to a loss of interactivity on the part of learners. The authors [5, 6] focus their work on the effectiveness of online courses. They demonstrate that the lack of interactivity is one of the main reasons for dropping out of courses in ODL. The objective of this paper is to contribute to improving the interactivity and quality of service of ODL platforms by leveraging the power of IPTV.

3 Technologies 3.1

Streaming

Streaming is a technology that transfers multimedia content over a network. It allows the transmission of audio/video streams from the sender to the recipients. This technology can be used for real-time broadcasting, but also for video on demand (VOD) reception [4]. Thanks to streaming, the user does not have to wait until the download of the multimedia file is complete to view it. The video source is encoded in a compressed format using encoders and then sent directly to the network. Streaming formats offer many advantages over traditional formats. These benefits include protecting the media against piracy, controlling flows and selecting authorized recipients through multicasting. This is why streaming is widely seen as an appropriate way to provide educational services via the Internet. All this brings a new dimension and more effective teaching methods than text and static images.

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Multicast

Multicast is the act of sending a message from a single source to several selected destinations through an IP network in a single data stream. It allows simultaneous communication with a group of computers identified by a specific address called a group address [7]. In multicast, only members of a group receive the group’s data. Any data sent to the group address is received by all group members. Multicast is suitable for any scenario where several stations need to receive the same information at the same time as IPTV [8]. Without being exhaustive, here are some of the advantages of multicast: • Use of the network independent of the number of receivers • Reduced resource utilization and network node load • All receivers have the same quality of service because they receive the same flow. Compared to Unicast or Broadcast, multicast is much more efficient. Multicast addresses are class D (224.0.0.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255.255) and are allocated by IANA which defines their use. 3.3

Interactive IPTV

Internet Protocol Television [9] (IPTV) is the distribution of media streams via broadband connections through an IP protocol. It includes conventional television and video-on-demand (VoD). In terms of concept, there are several essential components to build an IPTV solution [10, 11]. The distribution of the multimedia stream, compression and transmission to the hosts are provided by the stream servers. The conversion of media formats into a format suitable for transmission is provided by the encoder. Thus, when it comes to transmission across lines with low bandwidth, encoding is done with appropriate codecs, ensuring smooth playback and then resolving the quality issue. In traditional IPTV, recipients do not have the ability to interact with the sender. The objective of interactive television is to transform the unidirectional model of television into a two-way medium. 3.4

Video/Audio Encoding

The easiest way to optimize bandwidth usage is to compress data before it is sent over the network. The compression and decompression of flows are carried out using codecs. There are several codecs for transferring multimedia data streams over an IP network [12]. One of the most widely used codecs nowadays is Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). MPEG-2 [13] is interesting for streaming because it supports multiplexing of different streams. Although the MPEG-2 video coding and compression algorithm is still the most supported standard, the H.264 encoder is becoming the replacement of choice due to their higher compression factors. In fact, this codec has a compression efficiency that approximately doubles that of the MPEG-2 video codec [14]. Each stream, be it video or audio, is an Elementary Stream (ES) that after

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packetizing compounds a Packetized Elementary Stream (PES). After creating the PES stream, it is possible to multiplex the data in two formats: • MPEG Program Stream [15] which is better suited for low error transport media (such as digital video DVD discs) • The MPEG Transport Stream [16] has error correction mechanisms that make bit errors easier to recover. TS streams are therefore better suited for media with higher Bit Error Rates (BERs) (such as the DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) technology family).

4 Presentation of the Proposed Architecture We offer a highly interactive e-learning platform. This platform, based on FFmpeg, Tvheadend and Verto-FreeSwitch, allows a teacher to deliver an online course with a better quality of service. The FFmpeg streaming server performs MPEG-TS encoding and allows the teacher to stream a multimedia stream (audio/video) in unicast to the IPTV Tvheadend server. The latter carries out a multicast of this flow for learners. Using a web browser or an IPTV client, students can follow the teacher’s explanations and interact in real time using the Verto-FreeSwitch module. Figure 1 shows the architecture of the proposed solution.

Fig. 1. Architecture of the proposed solution

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5 Implementation 5.1

Freeswitch

FreeSWITCH is an open source IP telephony solution developed in C language. Freeswitch is capable to directly provide native services to browsers, such as video conferences, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) without the use of any gateway. FreeSWITCH can directly provide services through Secure WebSocket (WSS), SRTP, and DTLS, the native WebRTC protocols. To configure Freeswitch with the verto module, it is important to play the server on ports 8081 and 8082, then configure the certificates (Figs. 2 and 3). It is also necessary to configure the settings of the customer accounts (Fig. 4).

Fig. 2. Configuration of Freeswitch listening ports

Fig. 3. Configuring Freeswitch certificates

Fig. 4. Setting up a client account

5.2

FFmpeg

FFmpeg [17] is a cross-platform solution for recording, converting and broadcasting multimedia streams. It supports most current codecs and can be configured from the command line. FFmpeg also allows you to convert a video that is broadcast live in real time. It also provides video processing features and high quality filters.

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In our solution, we use FFmpeg to acquire multimedia stream from a source and then broadcast it to an IPTV server using the UDP protocol. The acquisition of the stream is done using the “-i” or “-input” parameter of the FFmpeg command (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Acquisition of multimedia streams via ffmpeg

5.3

Tvheadend

Tvheadend is a TV streaming server for GNU/Linux supporting DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-C, DVB-T, ATSC, IPTV and analogue video (V4L) standards. [18] Using external clients or a web browser, Tvheadend allows users to view and record the stream it transmits. Then, the stream is sent in unicast to the IPTV Tvheadend server. The IPTV Tvheadend server in turn rebroadcasts this same stream in real time to students in the TP room. Figure 6 shows the Tvheadend user interface. The user follows the live presentation and can interact using the verto-freeswitch module.

Fig. 6. Tvheadend and verto-freeswitch user interface

6 Conclusion The solution proposed in this article has made it possible to optimize real-time access to multimedia flows as part of distance learning. Indeed, the video and audio from the teacher are now relayed by several IPTV servers; thus ensuring better management of the scalability. In addition, the integration of the Verto-Freeswitch module into the IPTV server has made it possible to create an interactive television system suitable for distance learning. The use of this solution has allowed students to go to any Digital

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Open Space of the Virtual University of Senegal (UVS) and take quality online courses without subscribing to an Internet package. The adoption of the proposed approach could improve the quality of service of e-learning platforms and thus reduce the drop-out rate among learners. In the future, we intend to optimize load balancing by integrating several IPTV servers. This new approach could improve scalability management and optimize bandwidth.

References 1. Koncz, P., Lukáčová, A., Paralič, J.: Course web site as an integrated solution for e-learning, collaboration and publicly available knowledge base. In: 2012 IEEE 10th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), Stara Lesna, pp. 197–202 (2012) 2. Ouya, S., Gaglo, K., Mendy, G., Bamba, A., Niang, C.L.: Proposal of a collaborative software development platform for the virtual universities: The Virtual University of the Senegal (UVS) experience. In: 2015 5th World Congress on Information and Communication Technologies (WICT), Marrakech, pp. 23–28 (2015) 3. Floyd, S., Allman, M.: Comments on the Usefulness of Simple Best-Effort Traffic, RFC 5290, July 2008. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc5290. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5290 4. Cymbalák, D., Jakab, F., Michalko, M.: Next generation IPTV solution for educational purposes. In: 2011 9th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), Stara Lesna, pp. 41–46 (2011) 5. Frydenberg, J.: Quality standards in eLearning: a matrix of analysis. IRRODL 3(2) (2002) 6. Gamage, D., Femando, S., Perera, I.: Effectiveness of eleaming: grounded theory approach. In: 2015 Moratuwa Engineering Research Conference (MERCon), Moratuwa, pp. 336–341 (2015) 7. Cotton, M., Vegoda, L., Meyer, D.: IANA Guidelines for IPv4 Multicast Address Assignments, BCP 51, RFC 5771, March 2010. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc5771. https:// www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5771 8. Xiao, Y., Du, X., Zhang, J., Hu, F., Guizani, S.: Internet protocol television (IPTV): the killer application for the next-generation internet. IEEE Commun. Mag. 45, 126–134 (2007) 9. IPTV. https://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-iptv-works.html 10. Kim, K.-Y., Lee, Y.-I., Yoo, J.-J., Lyu, W., Jung, H.-K.: The design of the packaging contents authoring and consuming system for IPTV application service. In: 2010 The 12th International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT), Phoenix Park, pp. 586–590 (2010) 11. Obele, B.O., Han, S.H., Choi, J.K., Kang, M.: On building a successful IPTV business model based on personalized IPTV content & services. In: 2009 9th International Symposium on Communications and Information Technology, Icheon, pp. 809–813 (2009) 12. Pantos, R. (ed.), May, W.: HTTP Live Streaming, RFC 8216, August 2017. https://doi.org/ 10.17487/rfc8216. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8216 13. Van der Meer, J.: Layering in MPEG‐2 systems. In: Fundamentals and Evolution of MPEG2 Systems: Paving the MPEG Road. Wiley (2014). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118875926. ch09 14. MPEG, ISO/IEC 14496-10:2005 - Coding of audio-visual objects - Part 10: Advanced Video Coding, International Organization for Standardization

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15. What is MPEG PS? Working of MPEG PS or Program Stream. https://www.headendinfo. com/mpeg-ps/ 16. Wu, D., Sun, L., Yang, S.: A selective transport framework for delivery MVC video over MPEG-2 TS. In: 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB), Nuremberg, pp. 1–6 (2011) 17. Ffmpeg Documentation. https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html 18. Overview of Tvheadend. https://tvheadend.readthedocs.io/en/latest/overview/

Impact of Zeroconf Protocol on Distance Learning Massamba Seck1(&), Baboucar Diatta1, Samuel Ouya2, Gervais Mendy2, and Bessan Degboe2 1

University Alioune Diop of Bambey, Bambey, Senegal {massamba.seck,baboucar.diatta}@uadb.edu.sn 2 Laboratory LIRT, Higher Polytechnic School, University Cheikh Anta DIOP, Dakar, Senegal [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The teaching of STEM requires the effectiveness of practical work for the assimilation of knowledge. However, practical work is often neglected in the case of distance learning because of the difficulties encountered by the actors in accessing and configuring the terminals. In this article, we propose a solution based on the use of a relevant openVPN mode to remotely extend the functionalities of the Zeroconf protocol that allows the discovery and use of services without configuration in a local network. This solution, which allows practical work to be carried out in STEM, integrates file transfer functionalities, remote screen control, video, audio and chat without degrading the quality of service. The solution is also particularly useful for teaching and remote assessment of language skills. Keywords: E-learning


STEM
Zeroconf
OpenVPN
Multicast

1 Introduction The difficulties of discovering and configuring resource access terminals are often an obstacle to the effectiveness of practical work in the context of distance learning. However, these practical exercises are essential for a good assimilation of skills. Several technologies for automatic resource discovery exist, including Zeroconf. This technology uses multicasting to discover resources in local networks without any prior configuration. However, its discovery based on multicasting does not allow it to go beyond a local network. In this article, we propose a solution that uses the openVPN1 operating bridge mode to extend the functionalities of the Zeroconf protocol beyond a local network to allow access to educational resources without configuration to geographically dispersed learners. In addition, functionalities offering real-time audio-video services are implemented to be exploited by teaching-learning situations in the language field. 1

https://openvpn.net.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 172–181, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_18

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The functionalities of our solution, directly accessible by computer, smartphone or tablet, allow distance learning instructors to offer the possibility to present live content, audio, video, chat, while offering screen sharing and file transfer to the various participants. It is thus possible to provide pedagogical and educational content to areas that are disadvantaged in terms of infrastructure because they are accessible by telephone. The solution presented in this paper allows, among other things, STEM teachers to offer supervised practical work at a distance for their learners, to collaborate on practical work while being geographically dispersed. The organization of the rest of this article is as follows: Section 2 is devoted to the state of the art including the presentation of related work from peers and the main technological tools used, namely: Zeroconf, openVPN, Multicast. Section 3 describes our solution and how it works. In Sect. 4, we present the results obtained through a few use cases. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes and opens up perspectives.

2 State of the Art 2.1

Related Work

Real distance learning experiences in distance education have attracted the attention of the research community [1–3]. Several authors shared their experiences in terms of online laboratories and collaboration in distance education. These authors have shown the importance of practical work in the teaching of STEM and online languages and they have proposed relevant solutions. In [3], the authors focused their attention on the formulation and application of distance learning experiences in education, in terms of availability on the Internet and Intranet. The authors of [4] propose to manufacturers the integration of an additional layer in laboratory equipment so that it can be accessed and controlled remotely. To demonstrate the relevance and feasibility of their solution, they have, through a web portal, allowed remote students to take control and perform manipulations on a TP-Link router on which is installed the open source system OpenWRT2, Asterisk and the XMPP3 protocol (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol). In [5], the authors propose a solution for online learning with Moodle4, to create virtual classrooms, integrating video, audio, chat, and audio recording from different actors. Their solution integrates an audio tool for assessing language knowledge and allows learners to learn to use mathematical symbols and tools intensively. Their solution is based on the WebRTC5 protocol, and is used directly with the most popular browsers, without the need for plugin installation technology as well as from computers and smartphones. The authors in [6] proposed an extension of the functionalities of learning platforms. Their proposal, which uses the

2 3 4 5

https://openwrt.org/. https://xmpp.org/. https://moodle.org/. https://webrtc.org/.

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MSRP6 and WebSocket7 protocols, provides an improvement in the Moodle platform’s educational content presentation model, but also in the way students’ knowledge is assessed. Their solution allows users to create virtual classes, by integrating the sharing of screen control, file transfer regardless of their type and size, video, audio, and chat, of the different actors. 2.2

State of the Art Technology

Zeroconf. The Zeroconf project is an IETF project that has created a set of protocols for automatically configuring a local network. Zeroconf is today one of the most widely used technologies for discovering services in local networks without prior configuration. This is why it is pre-installed on operating systems and implemented by manufacturers of electronic devices such as network equipment, smartphones, and printers [7]. It allows users to offer and use services such as device synchronization, file sharing, instant messaging, audio and video communication, sharing and remote desktop control when accessing a local network. Zeroconf mainly uses the multicast protocols mDNS and DNS-SD. This protocol pair allows users to automatically discover and select services available in a local network. DNS multicast works on hosts making DNS requests on a multicast group. All network nodes that are members of the multicast group receive all DNS requests. If the incoming DNS request matches the node name request, the node responds to the requester. The service discovery by Zeroconf uses the multicast IPv4 address 224.0.0.0.251. This address 224.0.0.0.0.251 used by Zeroconf to broadcast messages on available services is part of the block of addresses reserved by IANA under the name “Local Network Control Block” [8]. The DNS Discovery Service (DNS-SD) is complementary to the mDNS service. Using the DNS-SD protocol, hosts offering services publish details of these services such as service type, domain name and configuration settings [9]. Many network software applications for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, such as the Blink Unified Communications Client, use DNS-SD to locate peers on the local network, and allow their users to communicate via audio-video, instant messaging, file transfer, screen sharing, and conferencing, but restrictively in a local network [10]. Other cross-platform software such as VLC for video broadcasting also uses Zeroconf to announce their feeds, allowing local network users to discover and access without configuration [11]. VPN. In terms of the OSI model, the tunnel operates at level 3 (IP), while the bridge operates at level 2 (Ethernet). VPN Operation in Tunnel Mode. In tunnel mode, a VPN client that connects is placed in a logical IP network dedicated to the VPN other than the local IP network. The VPN server acts as a router to relay network packets between the VPN client and the local network. Thus, any packet coming from the VPN client and going to the local network will have its TTL decremented by one unit by the VPN server.

6 7

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4975. http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-hybi-thewebsocketprotocol-06.

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VPN Operation in Bridge Mode. In bridge mode, the VPN client connects directly to the local network. It is as if the VPN client connects directly to the local network switch. Configuration in this case requires creating a virtual interface called a bridge interface, on the VPN server, and connecting the physical network interface of the server and the interface created by the VPN server to this bridge. Thus, any packet coming from the VPN client, and going to other machines on the local network will always keep the same TTL value. In this mode, the machines on the local network will receive Zeroconf messages from the VPN client. Similarly, the VPN client will receive Zeroconf messages from local network machines. Among the VPN solutions that support bridge mode, is openVPN, which is an open source tool. Multicast. Multicast is the simultaneous communication with a group of computers identified by a specific address called a group address. In multicast, only members of a group receive the group’s data. All group members receive any data sent to the group address. Multicast is suitable for any scenario where several stations need to receive the same information at the same time. Without using exhaustive details, the following are some of the advantages of multicast: – Use of the network independent of the number of receivers; – Reduced resource utilization and network node load; – All receivers have the same quality of service because they receive the same flow. Compared to Unicast or Broadcast, multicast is much more efficient. Multicast addresses are class D (224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255) and they are allocated by IANA, which defines their use. The address range 224.0.0.0 to 224.0.0.255 is reserved for use in a local network and IP datagrams using these addresses must not be transferred to another network by routers. On the other hand, routers can transfer IP datagrams with multicast IP addresses in the range 224.0.1.0 to 224.0.1.255 to other IP networks [12]. The protocol used by hosts to subscribe or unsubscribe from multicast groups is IGMP defined in versions 1, 2 and 3 by RFCs [13–15]. Thanks to the IGMP protocol, IP routers dynamically determine multicast groups with clients in a subnetwork. In this way, the router can update the group tables in which all participating hosts are listed [16]. Routers can use either the dense mode to transfer a multicast packet to all members of a group, or the sparse mode to transfer only to those who request it. One of the protocols used for multicast routing is the PIM, which manages the above modes [17]. In the context of distance learning, the latter mode is strongly recommended to better manage bandwidth.

3 Implemented Solution 3.1

Solution Architecture

The solution is based on the architecture of Fig. 1 below.

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Fig. 1. Solution architecture

The architecture is essentially based on a VPN server deployed using open source software OpenVPN. To allow Zeroconf to be used remotely by the different actors, we have configured Open VPN in bridge mode as shown in the extract from the openVPN configuration file (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. An extract from the openVPN configuration file

This bridge mode choice is very important because OpenVPN’s tunnel mode or another solution from another VPN using IPsec does not allow the Zeroconf messages we need in our solution to facilitate the use of collaboration tools without configuration. 3.2

How the Solution Works

OpenVPN clients are pre-installed and pre-configured on the machines of the different users. To connect to the VPN server, actors just click on the VPN connection icon on their terminal desktops. After connection, the different users using the different operating systems are integrated into the logical IP network in the logical IP network 10.10.0.0/24. Thanks to the relevance of the openVPN bridge mode choice, everything happens as if the actors are all connected to the VPN server by a switch (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3. Virtual functioning of the actors’ network

This virtual operation therefore allows the use of collaboration tools based on Zeroconf, which by default only works on local networks. Thus, actors can use a wide range of collaboration tools based on Zeroconf despite their geographical separation. Among these available tools, Blink software is available on all environments, Windows, Linux, and MacOS. This software is free on Windows and Linux. Blink is a real-time communication client using the SIP and Zeroconf protocol. It allows users to communicate in audio and video, chat, instant messaging, file transfer, screen sharing, and conference, without any configuration in a local network. Actors can also use other tools for automatic discovery and sharing of remote desktops that always use Zeroconf. This is the case of the Linux remote desktop access tool, which is captured in the Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Automatic discovery of machines that have activated remote desktop by Zeroconf

4 Results By using this platform, the different actors can collaborate in different scenarios, some of which are presented below. Case 1: TP of telecom networks with the GNS38 network emulation tool. GNS3 is a network equipment emulation tool that uses the real IOS of CISCO manufacturer’s equipment to actually emulate this equipment while integrating it into a

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physical network. Virtual machines or containers can be integrated into GNS3. It is a good tool for ICT collaboration in a local network thanks to the cloud concept that allows devices emulated in GNS3 with the real devices of the local network. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Teacher to share the computer screen uses Blink tool. A student requests access to the teacher’s screen to follow a TP. The teacher accepts. The student accesses the teacher’s screen, follows everything the teacher does and hears everything that the teacher says, from a distance. The Fig. 5 shows the screen of the student who has connected to the teaching office working on GNS3 in a Windows environment.

Fig. 5. Screen sharing with audio collaboration

5. In Fig. 6, we chose wisely to connect the router cloud to the VPN interface of the teacher’s machine. As a result, the router is integrated into the VPN network, allowing all players to manipulate it or have their machines communicate with the router. 6. The teacher sets up the router as a ToIP server and creates accounts for students.

Fig. 6. Learners’ accounts creation by teacher

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7. Using the connection settings previously created by the teacher and the student sees the softphone connect to the telephony server (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. SIP client configuration by the student

The student dials the teacher’s number and can communicate with him/her by audio. Thus each student learns how to configure the server and also how to configure the softphone. Thanks to this platform and the judicious choice of the GNS3 cloud bridge mode, the different actors are able to collaborate in the configuration and use of network equipment. Case 2: Software development TP in collaboration with students and teachers. 1. The teacher shares her/his screen with the students and shakes hands with a student to write part of a program code that another student could complete. 2. The teacher can compile and execute the code or give a student the opportunity to do so. 3. All students can see the results of the performance and each student can ask to speak or the teacher can give the floor to comment on the work (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8. TP in Java language

Case 3: Language Listening (TP) 1. The teacher uses Blink’s transfer feature to send a text file to be read to the student. 2. The teacher asks to communicate with the student in video and the student agrees. 3. The student reads the shared text.

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4. The teacher sees and hears the student reading and can correct him/her if necessary (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9. Listening TP

This case is very important for the improvement of teaching and the evaluation of online language courses.

5 Conclusion We proposed a solution that would allow remote and geographically dispersed users to access the resources and services available in their university network as if they were local. To do this, we used the Zeroconf protocol, which allows us to automatically discover the resources and services of a local network. Zeroconf operates in multicast mode, which limits it to a local network. To allow users to discover and access remote resources, we used a VPN in bridge mode. In order to show the relevance of the solution, different use cases have been successfully tested. The first concerns a telecom network TP with the GNS3 network emulation tool. The second deals with a software development TP in collaboration between student and teacher. The third use case concerns a Listening TP in language application. This solution contributes to the improvement of STEM and Distance Language teaching by improving the effectiveness of practical work, allowing interactive collaboration between geographically dispersed actors. We hope that our model and implementation will have a positive impact on distance learning. In future applications, we plan to use this solution to do remediation in STEMs and to deliver topics in educational and civic content in disadvantaged areas.

References 1. Bánesz, G., Haško, A., Lukáčová, D.: Elimination of barriers for a broader use of remote experiments in Slovakia. In: ASEE International Forum, Ohio, Columbus, p. 8 (2017) 2. Kozik, T., Simon, M., Arras, P., Olvecky, M., Kuna, P.: Remotely controlled experiments. Univerzity Konstantina Filozofa v Nitre, Nitra, Slovacia (2016)

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3. Kozík, T., Kuna, P., Šimon, M., Arras, P.: Remote experiments, from internet to intranet. Edukacja-Technika-Informatyka 6(3), 328–332 (2015) 4. Moussavou, D.E., Ouya, S., Faye, P.M.D., Lishou, C.: Contribution to the standard of manufacturing the remote laboratory equipment for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. In: International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, pp. 308–319. Springer, Cham, September 2016 5. Ouya, S., Sylla, K., Faye, P.M.D., Sow, M.Y., Lishou, C.: Impact of integrating WebRTC in universities’ e-learning platforms. In: 2015 5th World Congress on Information and Communication Technologies (WICT), Marrakech, pp. 13–17 (2015) 6. Sylla, K., Seck, M., Ouya, S., Mendy, G.: Impact of MSRP protocol integration in e-learning platforms of universities. In: 2018 20th International Conference on Advanced Communication Technology (ICACT), Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do, Korea (South), p. 1 (2018) 7. Lee, W., Schulzrinne, H., Kellerer, W., Despotovic, Z.: z2z: discovering zeroconf services beyond local link. In: 2007 IEEE Globecom Workshops, Washington, DC, pp. 1–7 (2007) 8. Cheshire, S., Krochmal, M.: Multicast DNS, RFC 6762, February 2013. https://doi.org/10. 17487/rfc6762. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762 9. Cheshire, S., Krochmal, M.: DNS-Based Service Discovery, RFC 6763, February 2013. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc6763. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6763 10. Blink: A state of the art, easy to use SIP client. http://icanBlink.com 11. The cross-platform streaming solution – VideoLAN. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ streaming.html 12. Cotton, M., Vegoda, L., Meyer, D.: IANA Guidelines for IPv4 Multicast Address Assignments, BCP 51, RFC 5771, March 2010. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc5771. https:// www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5771 13. Deering, S.: Host extensions for IP multicasting, STD 5, RFC 1112, August 1989. https:// doi.org/10.17487/rfc1112. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1112 14. Fenner, W.: Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 2, RFC 2236, November 1997. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc2236. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2236 15. Cain, B., Deering, S., Kouvelas, I., Fenner, B., Thyagarajan, A.: Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 3, RFC 3376, October 2002. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc3376. https:// www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3376 16. Matsuura, S., Shimamura, M., Iida, K.: Multicast group aggregation methods to decrease IGMP load for IPTV services and their performance evaluation. In: Proceedings of 2011 IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Communications, Computers and Signal Processing, Victoria, BC, pp. 602–607 (2011) 17. Papán, J., Drozdová, M., Segeč, P., Mikuš, Ľ., Hrabovský, J.: The new PIM-SM IPFRR mechanism. In: 2015 13th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), Stary Smokovec, pp. 1–7 (2015)

Contribution to Improvement of Distance Learning Based on Zeroconf Protocol and an Interactive IPTV Massamba Seck1(&), Baboucar Diatta1, Samuel Ouya2, Gervais Mendy2, and Kokou Gaglou2 1 University Alioune Diop of Bambey, Bambey, Senegal {massamba.seck,baboucar.diatta}@uadb.edu.sn 2 Laboratory LIRT, Higher Polytechnic School, University Cheikh Anta DIOP, Dakar, Senegal [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. In the context of widespread practice of distance education to solve problems of standardization of learners, multimedia flows are increasingly being used in teaching-learning situations. However, this use is often made with difficulties related to the scalability of platforms due to the unicast transmission mode of the exchanged data and especially to the many configurations on the terminals on the users’ side. In this article we propose an interactive IPTV multicast platform for distance learning using a VPN in bridge mode, Zeroconf, SAP protocols to facilitate automatic discovery and access to multimedia flows and WebRTC technology to enable interactivity between actors. This multicast IPTV solution is deployed on a public network, unlike the multicast IPTV solutions of telecommunications operators on their dedicated networks. Our solution contributes to the improvement of distance learning by helping universities to provide their students with quality interactive education and thus helps to reduce the feeling of isolation that is a factor among distance learning students who drop out of the instruction. Keywords: Multicast WebRTC
ELearning


VPN in bridge mode
Interactivity
Zeroconf


1 Introduction The development of innovative communication tools improves the practice of distance education and helps to solve the problem of the scarcity of teachers of certain specialties in certain disadvantaged areas. These innovative communication tools have encouraged many countries to create virtual universities and to direct students to them on a massive scale in order to relieve the overcrowding at traditional universities.

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This is the case in Senegal, which created the virtual university of Senegal (UVS)1 in 2014, and that now has more than 30,000 students. The success of social networks through the increasing use of multimedia has prompted many educational actors to integrate the use of voice, video, and text into their online learning platform. However, the need to configure certain terminals on the user side may hinder the use of these multimedia tools. In addition, there are other problems such as scalability, which is almost proportional to the number of users connected to the platforms because of the unicast mode of data transmission. In this article, we propose a solution based on an interactive multicast IPTV whose use does not require user configuration. Our multicast IPTV architecture works on a public network with a VPN using bridge mode that allows multicast messages to pass between remote actors independent of public network equipment. Zeroconf or SAP protocols are used for automatic discovery and access to terminal resources. WebRTC technology is used to provide real-time interaction between actors. This solution promotes the use of multimedia in distance learning platforms while optimizing scalability management. It helps universities to encourage the use of virtual classrooms to improve the quality of services provided to learners. This interactivity also helps to reduce learners’ sense of isolation, which is one of the factors leading students to dropout in distance education. This article is organized as follows: Section 2 is devoted to the state of the art including the presentation of peer related works and the main technological tools used. Section 3 describes our solution and how it works. In Sect. 4, we present the results obtained through a few use cases. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes and presents perspectives.

2 State of the Art 2.1

State of the Art on the Importance of Interactivity

In recent years, many researchers have shown the importance of using the socioconstructivist approach to encourage the teaching of STEM. Indeed, socioconstructivism is a learning process where people build their knowledge through social interactions and their environment. According to the advocates of this process, learners develop their understanding of a reality by comparing their perception with that of their peers and that of the teacher [1, 2]. In the literature, researchers such as [3] have shown that the distance between actors in a project and teaching is no longer a problem given the current development of technological means of communication. The authors in article [4] argue that in distance learning, even the most motivated and organized learners may be in danger of dropping out, because of the isolation that they could feel.

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State of the Art of IPTV and E-learning

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a technology that uses the IP network protocol to broadcast video over a network. Its use as a technique for distribution and access to broadband multimedia services has attracted the interest of a very large community of researchers in recent years [5–8]. Authors such as [5] have indicated in their work that IPTV can be used to improve the field of education. The authors in [6] indicate that IPTV has become, in our daily lives, an infrastructure that delivers entertainment and communication services. IPTV makes it possible to have broadcast television, multicast, video on demand, but also services such as interactive gaming and targeted interactive television advertising. In [7] the authors exploited the rich multimedia potential of IPTV to integrate it into an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) based training platform for kindergarten children’s education. While in [8], a proposal to use IPTV to allow access to educational content in rural areas or disadvantaged areas facing difficulties in developing Internet-based distance learning because of the shortage of computers online. 2.3

State of the Art on Technology

VPN Bridge Mode. In bridge mode, the VPN client connects directly to the local network. It is as if the VPN client connects directly to the local network switch. Configuration in this case requires creating a virtual interface called a bridge interface on the VPN server, and connecting the physical network interface of the server and the interface created by the VPN server to this bridge. Thus, any packet coming from the VPN client and going to other devices on the local network will always keep the same Time To Live (TTL) value. In this mode, the machines on the local network will receive Zeroconf messages from the VPN client. Similarly, the VPN client will receive Zeroconf messages from local network machines. Among the VPN solutions that support bridge mode, is openVPN2, which is an open source tool. Zeroconf. The Zeroconf project is an IETF project that has created a set of protocols for automatically configuring a local network. Zeroconf is now one of the most widely used technologies for discovering services in local networks without prior configuration. For this reason, it is pre-installed on operating systems and implemented by manufacturers in electronic devices and particularly network equipment such as smartphones, and printers [9]. It allows users to offer and use services such as device synchronization, file sharing, instant messaging, audio and video communication, sharing and remote desktop control, when accessing a local network. Zeroconf essentially uses the mDNS and DNS-SD multicast protocols. This pair of protocols allows you to automatically discover and select available services in a local network.

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DNS multicast runs on hosts that perform DNS queries on a multicast group. All network nodes that are members of the multicast group receive all DNS queries. If the incoming DNS request matches the node name query, the node responds to the requestor. Zeroconf service discovery uses the IPv4 multicast address 224.0.0.251. This address 224.0.0.251 used by Zeroconf to broadcast messages about available services, is part of the block of addresses reserved by IANA under the name “Local Network Control Block” [10]. The DNS Discovery Service (DNS-SD) is complementary to the mDNS service. Using DNS-SD, hosts providing services publish details of these services such as service type, domain name, and configuration settings [11]. Multicast. Multicast is the simultaneous communication with a group of computers identified by a specific address called a group address. In multicast, only members of a group receive the group’s data. All group members receive any data sent to the group address. Multicast is suitable for any scenario where several stations need to receive the same information at the same time. Without being exhaustive, here are some of the advantages of multicast: – Use of the network independent of the number of receivers – Reduced resource utilization and network node load – All receivers have the same quality of service since they receive the same flow In comparison with Unicast or Broadcast, multicast is much more efficient. Multicast addresses are Class D (224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255) and are allocated by the IANA that defines their usage. Address range 224.0.0.0 through 224.0.0.255 is reserved for use in a local area network and IP datagrams using these addresses should not be forwarded to another network by routers. In contrast, routers can transfer IP datagrams with multicast IP addresses in the range 224.0.1.1.0 to 224.0.1.255 to other IP networks [12]. The protocol used by hosts to subscribe or unsubscribe from multicast groups is IGMP defined in versions 1, 2 and 3 by RFCs [13–15]. Thanks to the IGMP protocol, IP routers dynamically determine multicast groups with clients in a subnetwork. In this way, the router can update the group tables in which all participating hosts are listed [16]. Routers can use either the dense mode to transfer a multicast packet to all members of a group, or the sparse mode to transfer only to those who request it. One of the protocols used for multicast routing is the PIM, which manages the above modes [17]. In the context of distance learning, the latter mode is strongly recommended to better manage bandwidth. An important point of the PIM protocol is the possibility that a source will register with a Rendezvous point (RP), which subscribers will address to have multicast streams. Designating an RP closest to the subscribers helps to reduce bandwidth consumption.

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3 Implementation of Our Solution Telecommunications operators use a proprietary network infrastructure to manage the transport and distribution of IPTV flows to their customers. This infrastructure is based on a four-layer architecture, the last two of which are shown in Fig. 1. The access layer manages the Set Top Box (STB), which is a device to which the subscriber’s television is connected. A subscriber’s STB is connected to the modem that is connected to the first equipment in the IPTV network layer at the operator, called MSAN (Multi Service Access Node), which is a device that works like a Switch. The MSAN is connected to a router connected to the core of the network that is fully managed by the operator. This allows it to activate multicast management and Quality of Service (QoS).

Fig. 1. Network and access layer of telecommunication operator architecture

This architecture is not suitable for a university that does not want to rely on a telecom operator to provide IPTV to its learners who access the Internet from anywhere in the world. These learners are not necessarily connected to the same operator. 3.1

Description of the Proposed Architecture

In this architecture, we opted for bandwidth optimization and improved quality of service and quality of experience. The flow of a site A is sent in unicast to the router RP (rendezvous point) which is on the site B, once in the site B, the information is sent in multicast mode to all the devices at the site. Once on site B, users who have machines with terminals that support Zeroconf, such as VLC or KODI, can automatically discover the streams. Those without terminals supporting Zeroconf can go through the SAP Service Announcement Server to determine the IP address of the rendezvous point that has the feeds and thus connect to it (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2. Architecture of the proposed platform

3.2

Functioning of the Proposed Architecture

1. A teacher goes to the university’s IPTV recording studio at site A to lead a virtual classroom. 2. The teacher uses a browser that supports the WebRTC3 module to have an IP Softphone in the teacher’s browser and connects to a conference number previously defined on the Freeswitch4 IP telephony server to be able to answer any questions asked by students. 3. Students at Site A can use multicast terminals supporting Zeroconf to automatically discover the multimedia stream broadcast from the studio. 4. Students who are at home, having previously configured a VPN client on their device connect via VPN. Thanks to the judicious choice of the VPN in bridge mode and everything happens as if they were on the site with the possibility of subscribing to feeds like the students in point 3. 5. Using a site-to-site VPN between A and B, the stream source uses the PIM protocol, illustrated in Fig. 3, to connect to the rendezvous point (RP) and send the stream to it.

Fig. 3. Enabling PIM sparse mode on the router

6. Site B students can use multicast terminals that support Zeroconf to automatically discover the media stream broadcast from the RP. 7. Students who do not have Zeroconf-enabled terminals can go through the previously configured SAP Session Announcement Server as shown in Fig. 4 to discover

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the RP address and access the broadcast stream. Figure 5 shows a capture of the SAP server [18] announcement of multicast addresses on the local network.

Fig. 4. SAP server configuration file on Linux.

Fig. 5. Announcement of distribution sources by SAP

8. To ask questions, a student uses a browser that integrates a Softphone and uses the conference number of the virtual classroom that scrolls at the bottom of the screen to connect to the virtual classroom conference. 9. To allow all other students to hear the intervention of a fellow student, whom the teacher authorizes to intervene, the teacher’s microphone is connected to the multicast system. We specify that we activated the IGMP SNOOPING protocol on the switches of the sites A and B, as shown in Fig. 6, to send the flows only to the ports on which the users interested in the virtual class are connected, thus optimizing the bandwidth. The teacher has a screen that is not visible to learners and allows the teacher to receive requests for text intervention from students. The teacher can use a tablet to grant or not the intervention of a student.

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Fig. 6. Showing IGMP SNOOPING support on a switch

4 Results Case 1: A stream of a virtual classroom is broadcast and the student uses software like VLC to discover through the SAP protocol as shown in Fig. 7. The student chooses his virtual classroom.

Fig. 7. SAP automatically discovers a flow of a virtual classroom by a student terminal

The student accesses the teacher’s multimedia stream as shown in Fig. 8

Fig. 8. Image of a teacher delivering his class in real time

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Case 2: Interactivity between teacher and student. A student asks to intervene by chat and the teacher authorizes him to ask his question as shown in Fig. 9. The student asks his question using his softphone Verto5 integrated into his browser. Since the teacher’s earpiece is connected to our IPTV broadcast system, the teacher draws the attention of other students by saying that he is about to give the floor to one of their classmates to intervene. The student who receives the teacher’s answer, asks his question, which is followed directly by everyone else using their IPTV terminal.

Fig. 9. A student asks for the floor to ask a question to the teacher

The teacher answers the student’s question via IPTV as shown in Fig. 10. So all the students in the virtual classroom followed their classmate’s question and also the teacher’s answer to the question.

Fig. 10. Teacher answering a student

5 Conclusion and Perspectives In order to contribute to the improvement of distance learning, we described the implementation of an interactive IPTV multicast. To allow remote students to connect to the media stream without configuration, we configured a bridge-mode access VPN and a site-to-site VPN in bridge mode. This bridge mode has made possible the transmission of multimedia streams through the public network that does not inhibit

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this type of flow. The use of Zeroconf and SAP protocols allowed our IPTV users to access them without prior configuration. This is important because configuration issues can discourage the use of a service despite its importance. The integration of the WebRTC technology with the Freeswitch telephony server allowed the learners to intervene by audio thanks to a softphone integrated in their browser. The successful management of remote multicast enabled learners to use instant messaging tools to ask the teacher to intervene after their agreement through the same channel. The fact that our solution connects the teacher’s listening system to broadcast on the IPTV allowed students to follow the interventions of a student who was given permission to intervene as if the actors were in the same physical classroom. This result is an important contribution to counteract the feeling of isolation of learners in distance education and helps maintain and encourage students to integrate distance education. In perspective, we intend to work on improving the sizing and support of a large number of actors in a virtual classroom.

References 1. Ferreira, C., Neves, P., Costa, C., Teramo, D.: Socio-constructivist teaching powered by ICT in the STEM areas for primary school. In: 2017 12th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), Lisbon, pp. 1–5 (2017) 2. Dominoni, M., Pinardi, S., Riva, G.: Omega network: an adaptive approach to social learning. In: 2010 10th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, Cairo, pp. 953–958 (2010) 3. Hanson, B., Culmer, P., Gallagher, J., Page, K., Read, E., Weightman, A., Levesley, M.: ReLOAD: real laboratories operated at a distance. IEEE Trans. Learn. Technol. 2(4), 331– 341 (2009) 4. Mourad, B., Tarik, A., Karim, A., Pascal, E.: System interactive cyber presence for E learning to break down learner isolation. arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.06641 (2015) 5. Parkes, N.: The role of iptv in education. In: NSW 2013, pp. 10–23 (2013) 6. Jones, S.S., Lee, C.S.: IPTV systems, standards, and architectures: Part I. IEEE Commun. Mag. 46(2), 69–69 (2008) 7. Pohradský, P., Londák, J., Čačíková, M.: Application of ICT in pre-school education. In: Proceedings ELMAR 2010, Zadar, pp. 159–162 (2010) 8. Zhu, X., Yin, J., Liu, Q., Wang, M.: Architecture and design of education IPTV for Elearning in Rural Area. In: 2008 IEEE International Symposium on IT in Medicine and Education, Xiamen, pp. 169–173 (2008) 9. Lee, J.W., Schulzrinne, H., Kellerer, W., Despotovic, Z.: z2z: discovering zeroconf services beyond local link. In: 2007 IEEE Globecom Workshops, Washington, DC, pp. 1–7 (2007) 10. Cheshire, S., Krochmal, M.: Multicast DNS, RFC 6762, February 2013. https://doi.org/10. 17487/rfc6762. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762 11. Cheshire, S., Krochmal, M.: DNS-Based Service Discovery, RFC 6763, February 2013. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc6763. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6763

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12. Cotton, M., Vegoda, L., Meyer, D.: IANA Guidelines for IPv4 Multicast Address Assignments, BCP 51, RFC 5771, March 2010. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc5771. https:// www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5771 13. Deering, S.: Host extensions for IP multicasting, STD 5, RFC 1112, August 1989. https:// doi.org/10.17487/rfc1112. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1112 14. Fenner, W.: Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 2, RFC 2236, November 1997. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc2236. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2236 15. Cain, B., Deering, S., Kouvelas, I., Fenner, B., Thyagarajan, A.: Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 3, RFC 3376, October 2002. https://doi.org/10.17487/rfc3376. https:// www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3376 16. Matsuura, S., Shimamura, M., Iida, K.: Multicast group aggregation methods to decrease IGMP load for IPTV services and their performance evaluation. In: Proceedings of 2011 IEEE Pacific Rim Conference on Communications, Computers and Signal Processing, Victoria, BC, pp. 602–607 (2011) 17. Papán, J., Drozdová, M., Segeč, P., Mikuš, Ľ., Hrabovský, J.: The new PIM-SM IPFRR mechanism. In: 2015 13th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), Stary Smokovec, pp. 1–7 (2015) 18. Handley, M., Perkins, C., Whelan, E.: Session announcement protocol (No. RFC 2974) (2000). https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2974

Virtual and Augmented Reality in Science Teaching and Learning Charilaos Tsichouridis1(&), Marianthi Batsila2(&), Dennis Vavougios1(&), and George Ioannidis3(&) 1

2

University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece {hatsihour,dvavou}@uth.gr Directorate of Secondary Education, Ministry of Education, Larissa, Greece [email protected] 3 University of Patras, Patras, Greece [email protected]

Abstract. The present research investigates the state-of-the-art concerning virtual and augmented reality lab environments, in science teaching and learning. Both environments are suggested as most appropriate for science education. The study explores the extent to which research has progressed concerning these new tools, while focusing on the extent to which actual educational trials in science classrooms have been completed. To this effect, 19 research papers were identified and reviewed. Conclusions are drawn as regards the effectiveness of these two lab environment types as a function of the age of students, today. The creation of educational VR and AR that resembles reality so closely that it is hard to differentiate between virtual, augmented, and real, thus creating a unified continuum, seems to finally be within our grasp, yet further research is needed as to their optimum use. Keywords: Science education Reality
Meta-analysis


Virtual Reality
Augmented Reality
Mixed

1 Introduction – Virtual (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) The world around us is perceived through our senses and the perception mechanisms we have. All our senses ensure that a rich flow of information is collected from the environment and reaches our brain. It is said that if our senses accepted fake information, this would change our perception of reality and this would modulate our response. This in turn would mean that somebody or something could present to us a version of reality that is not “really there”, but this could be perceived as real from our point of view. This fact can be referred to as “virtual reality”, otherwise known as “virtual environment” or “virtual world”. Virtual reality (VR) implies the presence of our senses in an electronic virtual environment that we can browse and explore. In other words, virtual reality (VR) is the use of computer technology to create a simulated environment, or is the term used to describe a three-dimensional, computergenerated environment that can be explored and interact with a person [1]. This person becomes part of this virtual world or immerses himself/herself into this environment © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 193–205, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_20

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and can handle objects or perform a series of actions. This environment, which offers the possibility of simulating as many senses as possible, such as vision, hearing, touch, even smell, turns the computer into a doorway to an artificial world of virtual experiences. An educational virtual environment (a.k.a. world) acts as a cognitive tool [2]. In natural science, students enter a virtual model of the natural world through a virtual environment, and travel within it, or intervene as they wish. Virtual environments can help science become much more appealing to students. Research has shown that the use of virtual reality as a learning tool can increase student involvement and interest, conceptual understanding and creative learning, by encouraging learners to learn exploring and interacting with information in virtual environments. In addition, research has shown that virtual environments in which students create or change data in order to study and gain knowledge have positive learning outcomes [3]. Research has also revealed that learning in a virtual environment allows a new kind of communication between participants but also a kind of teaching that encourages pupils to be more open in a way that seems effective, interesting and enhances students’ selfconfidence and creativity in the modern world. Surveys reveal that virtual lab environments allow pupils experience significant learning experiences combined with imagination and initiative. Moreover, they facilitate conceptual understanding of a three-dimensional space while allow exploration of the natural laws and relationships that constitute them. What is more, they are offered as a teaching tool to help learners towards a transition to scientific thinking. Virtual lab environments have more advantages. For example, their use can minimize the cost of materials in a real lab, as well as potential waste. So, instead of destroying potentially dangerous consumables and then replacing them, one can use virtual reality labs to represent what is happening in the real world without the aforementioned risks or possible high costs [4]. Virtual workshops also present advantages for teaching large number of learners. They provide familiarity with the experimental process and limit the time spent for learning the use of various instruments and devices, for processing and presenting measurements, or for preparing an experiment (organizing and gathering materials, preparing samples). They provide the opportunity of (virtual) testing and experimentation under a number of conditions, thus, contributing to the development of perceiving how a device or an instrument works. They can also enhance the understanding of the safety rules during lab work. They address problems like lack of sufficient number of devices and instruments, time, space and high cost of maintenance and replacement that result from experimentation [5]. Virtual workshops can also be used for successfully carrying out difficult and time-consuming experiments. They can contribute to a better understanding of phenomena investigated by also presenting explanations. Experiments in virtual environments have the following features [6]: They simulate the interaction between experiment and user faster than in the real world. Augmented reality (AR) environments, on the contrary, alter student’s perception of an already existing real-world experiment. At its purest (i.e. highest) level, physical reality and its “augmented” part are seamlessly interwoven, and student experience is unified into an experience that can even be deeply immersive. This is achieved by overlaying virtual objects on real-experiments with spatial registration that enables geometric persistence of placement and orientation within the real world. This seamless experience requires the use of specialised and sometimes most innovative equipment,

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not yet in mass production, which might even incorporate remote-online labs offering a seamless educational experience. At a much lighter (and far less expensive) level, the augmentation component (often containing extra helpful educational information), can be provided with the use of smartphones, albeit with the overall experience only resembling “Pokémon Go” entertainment games. Mixed reality (MR) can mean various things depending on still evolving definitions, one of which covers the entire continuum between real experiments and purely virtual ones. However, one definition involves (as an addition to augmented reality) the anchoring of virtual objects to real world objects, thereby moving together with them, and therefore allowing students to handle them as mixed reality objects. Many advantages of virtual experiments also apply to augmented (or mixed reality) experiments, to a greater or lesser extent. They all offer the possibility to quickly repeat lab activities until full understanding is achieved and desired skills acquired. Observations from different perspectives are possible. VR enhances distance learning, and helps avoid hazards. AR offers better tactile immediacy. They both provide information from multitude of sources, bypass time constraints, encourage initiative taking and selflearning, while also promoting learning based on a STEM approach.

2 Purpose or Goal Research reveals that interactive virtual and augmented reality experiments appear to be an effective evolution in science teaching. According to research, the use of virtual reality can increase student involvement and interest, conceptual understanding and creative learning, encouraging students to learn how to explore and interact with the information provided. In addition, research has shown that virtual environments have positive learning outcomes and lead to a new kind of communication between participants but also to an alternative kind of teaching that encourages students to be more open and self-confident as well as creative. Furthermore, the features of virtual reality, such as free navigation and interaction, visualization and simulation of abstract concepts provide opportunities for learners to enrich their experience of the world and help them construct the necessary cognitive models. VR and AR appear to display similar characteristics and have been in the centre of interest for the educational research community for some years now. Previous research revealed that either the switching of the order of real to virtual labs and vice versa or the combination of real and virtual labs [1] is preferred by each educational level. However, suggestions have been made as to whether augmented versus virtual reality could be just another stage in the debate between real and virtual lab advantages in science teaching [7]. Hence, it was decided to investigate all recent papers concerning these environments.

3 Research Approach The purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which virtual and augmented reality environments have been investigated in science teaching, and the relative effectiveness of either technique. The aim was to detect the prevailing

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educational level (primary-secondary-tertiary) that uses each of these lab types, and the prevailing trend of each in terms of educational implementation. A meta-analysis method was used as research tool, this being a technique to combine and summarize the findings from numerous individual studies [8]. The steps followed were problem conceptualisation, defining measurable variables, finding and selecting analogous studies, identifying and coding study characteristics, data collection and processing, analysing the studies selected, and reporting meta-analytic findings [9]. Thus, a number of 56 research papers were initially identified and analysed, covering a period between 1998 and 2019. From those, for the purposes of the present study it was decided to concentrate into 19 experimental studies investigating specifically the educational effectiveness of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) labs during actual educational practice, by acquiring primary research data.

4 Results The key findings of the aforementioned 19 identified and reviewed papers of the past 10 years are presented herein, in relation to the level of education (primary to tertiary), in an effort to detect trends and compare educational effectiveness. Primary Education Level Four papers were identified that concerned primary education. In the first one [3] a comparison between non-haptic and haptically augmented simulation was conducted in physics learning. The authors found that tangible augmented simulation has better results in providing pupils with perceptual experiences, while it helps them to create multimodal representations in lever movements. Two interface systems, haptic and non-haptic for robot programming were compared. Another experiment [10] used both younger and older children, and they all liked it a lot. During evaluation, it was found that the haptic was preferred by all -especially by girls- who, incidentally, did not have much computer experience, and they found it fun and easy to use. However, with 11– 12 year olds the haptic app, although still more enjoyable, was not considered as the easiest. In a third study [4], the authors tried to describe the design and evaluation of SMART, an educational system that uses augmented reality for teaching zoology to second grade students and evaluate their progress. They found that SMART is effective in maintaining high of motivation among children, and has assisted students’ learning, especially among slow learners. Another issue was related to why (previously) weaker students improve faster than good ones. One possible explanation would be that good students are already good enough, with little scope for further improvement. Another explanation relates to weaker students being, in general, more likely to favour physical activity, acquiring skills like playing with virtual racquets that might speed-up their learning performance. Other researchers [6] proposed an AR app and evaluated its effectiveness in natural science teaching, two classes been taught by the same teacher in an elementary school in northern Taiwan. The proposed approach was found to improve the students’ learning achievements. Moreover, students who learned with the augmented reality-based mobile learning approach, exhibited significantly higher motivation, attention, and confidence, than those who learned with the conventional

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Table 1. Key findings in primary education Author/s

Year Country Purpose of research

Freitas and Campos

Sample Method

Findings

2008 Portugal Evaluation of Zoology AR app “SMART”

54

Pre, post-tests

Han and Black

2011 Korea and U.S.A

220

Pre, post-tests

Enhances learning, collaboration, maintains high levels of incentives The haptic app was more effective than the non-haptic one

Sapounidis and Dimitriadis

2013 Greece

Chiang et al.

2014 Taiwan

To investigate the effectiveness of a haptic AR app To explore students’ views on a haptic app and a graphical one To propose an AR app and detect its effectiveness

Subject

Physics

Programming 61

Questionnaires, interviews

Natural sciences (aquatic plants and animals)

Comparative Improves study, pre, post- learning, offers tests higher levels of participation, better performance than other simulation environments

57

The haptic app was more effective for learning

inquiry-based mobile learning approach. The following table (Table 1) summarizes the main findings of the studies carried out in primary education: Secondary Education Level – Junior High School Learners Three papers were identified in lower secondary education, which examined the educational effectiveness of VR apps. Thus, one of these researches [11] looked into the contribution of VR to construct mental models for the solar system in a physics course. The students were enthusiastic with the virtual space and became aware of most of their misconceptions about the movements of the celestial bodies and the phenomena created by these movements. In another study [12], a virtual environment assessment was conducted on a chemistry course and found it enhanced learning. Other researchers [5] discussed the implementation of AR in education, a 3D AR learning environment and a long-distance augmented video system. They conducted a case study investigating the learning attitudes of the experimental group students by using AR instructional applications and compared the difference in the learning achievements of eighth graders with the convex lens image forming an experiment in two learning environments with middle-school students (24 experimental and 26 control). In their

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study they argue that the mean scores of the experimental group increased more significantly than the mean scores of the control group; however, there appeared to be no significant difference in the mean scores between the two groups in post-tests. As they claim, most students were found to have positive attitudes towards using AR for their learning in physics courses and believe that AR instructional applications hold their attention and increase their learning motivation in physics. The results of their work also showed that this learning environment that blends reality with virtuality, would greatly stimulate the learning interests of students and promote their level of activity, suggesting significant potential for this learning application in practice. The following table (Table 2) summarizes the key findings of the studies implemented in lower secondary education: Table 2. Key findings of lower secondary education Author/s Year Country Purpose of research

Subject

Sample Method

Bakas et al.

2002 Greece

The Physics 57 contribution of (solar Virtual Reality phenomena) (VR) in learning

Interviews

Patsalou et al.

2002 Greece

The Chemistry effectiveness of a Virtual Reality (VR) app The impact of Physics Virtual Reality (VR) on students’ learning attitudes

40

Questionnaires, recorded observations

50

Questionnaire survey

Cai et al. 2013 China

Findings Enthusiasm, Addresses misconceptions for celestial objects effectively Enhances learning

Students are positive, participation and motives are enhanced

Secondary Education Level – Senior High School Learners Regarding upper secondary education, two studies were identified and examined. One of them investigated whether an augmented reality app improves learning outcomes for 64 Senior High School students in relation to another web application. Augmented reality did have better results when learning physics, than ordinary web application [13]. Other researchers explored the possibility of embedding augmented reality (AR) in authentic inquiry activities to contextualize students’ exploration of medical surgery. Students’ perceptions of the AR lessons and simulations, were investigated, and their interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Embedding AR promotes students’ engagement and motivation in developing practical skills suitable for surgery and inspired them to select STEM-related majors at university [14] (Table 3).

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Table 3. Key findings of upper secondary level Author/s Year Country Purpose of research

Subject Sample Method

IbanezEspiga

2014 Spain

Physics 64

Hsu et al.

2017 Taiwan

Comparison of two educational AR apps The effectiveness of AR activities

STEM

32

Findings

Pre, post-tests

Better learning results compared to other web apps Questionnaires Enhances motivation and practical skills

Tertiary Education Level At the tertiary level, a larger number of studies (7 of them) was identified and examined. One study [15] compared the effectiveness of a virtual reality application (Samsung GEAR) on a mobile phone, with the effectiveness of another application (HTC Vive) in a non-mobile apparatus at pupils studying natural science. They conducted a qualitative study with 25 participants and found that the mobile app was more flexible than the other app, thereby facilitating physics learning. Another experimental study [16] conducted on 3-D virtual environments with 22 university students, and found that VR can help students improve their understanding of physics and chemistry processes by visualising and mentally manipulating 3D crystals. It was found that as many natural processes are in 3D, visualising these matches closely students’ own learning style. However, only some software parameters (interactivity, navigation, and 3D perception) seem to be educationally relevant. Another experiment [17] measured students’ perception of depth in virtual reality environments and compared it with that in the real world, albeit with limited statistics. The results showed that despite significant individual differences, virtual reality is helpful in promoting the understanding of depth. Other researchers [18] described and analysed various curricular and extracurricular activities that employ mobile augmented reality (MAR) in teaching physics. The study was conducted with 22 pre-service teachers administering pre and post questionnaires, using systematic observation and participants’ self-evaluation sheets. They appeared confident to use MAR in their teaching, and consider that MAR helped them develop the skills necessary for science teachers in a technology-based society and to reflect upon the role of technology in the current Romanian educational context. Another AR/MR study [19] uses virtual object anchoring, and presents the holo.lab version of standard experiment used to teach heat conduction in metals within an introductory laboratory course in thermodynamics. Physical data from external sensors (in this case an infrared camera for analysing and displaying physical phenomena are used, with a sample of 59 students. The results showed a small positive effect of AR/MR on students’ performance measured with a standardized concept test for thermodynamics, pointing to an improvement of the understanding of the underlying physical concepts. These findings indicate that complex experiments could benefit even more from augmentation. The authors conclude that AR motivates teachers to enrich experiments further, with MR. Other researchers [20] investigated AR and VR technologies as regards their effect on learning outcomes, such as acquisition and retention of science understanding. Their results revealed that VR is more immersive and engaging through the mechanism of spatial presence. However,

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AR seems to be a more effective medium for conveying auditory information. Another study [21] presented the development of a project called AVATAR which investigated its effectiveness as a VR project substituting real labs. It was found that AVATAR provided adequate information and feedback before and after the experiments, and learning tasks were clear. Furthermore, the VR resources were easy to handle. Assessment of the app revealed that it had a positive effect on learners and met their expectations, increasing their interest. This app allowed the simulation of practical experience, individual thinking, teamwork, and sharing of knowledge (Table 4).

Table 4. Key findings from the tertiary level Author/s

Year Country

Purpose of research

Trindade et al.

2002 Portugal

Akai

Pirker

Sample Method

Findings

Evaluation of a Physics, 3D VR Chemistry environment

22

Questionnaires and interviews

2007 Canada

The perception Distance of depth in VR perception

8

Questionnaires

2017 Austria

Comparative evaluation of two apps

Physics

25

Pre, post questionnaires

Physics

46

Pre, post questionnaires

Increases spatial competence; better conceptual perceptions, interactivity Helps mostly spacerelated concepts (spatial ability and spatial perceptions) Excellent interactive and practical experience with positive learning outcomes Enhances practical and cognitive skills and offers a creative approach to education

Crăciun and 2017 Romania Effectiveness Bunoiu of Artificial Reality (AR) activities of MAR Strzys et al. 2018 Germany Presentation and evaluation of the AR holo. lab Huang et al. 2019 Japan The impact of Artificial Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) on learning Tibola et al. 2019 Portugal The development and evaluation of a VR environment

Subject

Heat 59 conduction

Pre and post tests

Facilitates the implementation of difficult experiments

Science

109

Pre and post tests

Electricity

49

Questionnaires

AR and VR can both be used effectively to teach science-based information (i.e. spatial perceptions or auditory retention ability) Positive attitude to physics. High level of satisfaction

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Teachers’ Opinion at All Levels Teachers’ opinion was overall positive. One study [22] concerned a comparison between an educational Virtual Reality (VR) application using personal computers versus the same application in mobile phones. Results revealed that the computer VR application is very effective as an interactive environment and activates students more, compared to the mobile app. Elsewhere [23], researchers examined AR learning and teaching materials based on AR with 3Dmax and BuildAR teaching electromagnetism and found that they can be used for teaching at the highest level. In another study [24] researchers looked into AR for educational purposes teaching Science at lower secondary school and found that AR engages learners and enhances creativity. Summarizing the key findings: (1) Primary education: VR/AR Maintain high levels of motivation; Improve learning outcomes; provide positive impact on the learning experience; offer higher levels of attention; especially help students with low performance. (2) Lower Secondary: They enhance excitement; strengthen the learning process; cause a positive attitude towards physics; address misconceptions effectively, increase attention, interest, learning goals, active participation. (3) Upper Secondary: They have better learning outcomes on electromagnetic issues compared to other online applications; increase learning motivation and practical skills. (4) Tertiary level: They offer excellent interactive and practical experiences with positive learning outcomes; increase physics skills; offer an Effective interactive environment; help in the implementation of complex experiments; they are particularly helpful in concepts related to space. They offer a high level of satisfaction; they offer impressive virtual environments; they increase interest; they present the learning challenges through a playful learning approach that has several features common to the online games students are familiar with. Virtual labs offering impressive virtual environments increase student interest to gain experience as these environments have technological characteristics similar to those used by young people in their everyday lives. They allow the simulation of practical experience, individual thinking, and the exchange of results, conclusions, and questions. They promote teamwork, brainstorming, and knowledge sharing on the internet; they provide an environment that responds to today’s educational requirements and the expectations of pupils of the millennium generation. Trend in Virtual and Artificial Reality (VR/AR) as they Evolved During The Past Decade Looking at the aforementioned empirical studies that have been conducted in a time span between 2008–2019, a few conclusions can be drawn. The initial enthusiasm, curiosity, and/or excitement of their novel characteristics and the creation of a positive attitude towards learning were superseded by the need to focus on specific skills improvement by AR/VR such as increasing spatial and perceptual ability. Nevertheless, the necessity of motivation enhancement remained paramount, and it therefore continued to constitute a research topic revealing the ability of AR/VR to promote involvement and active participation. With years passing by, researchers focused on the ways AR/VR could address issues such as practical skills linked to real life needs, an issue which was investigated and was found that VR/AR have the ability to train learners effectively to acquire life skills. In addition, research interest focused to more complex and specialised tasks such as the implementation of difficult or dangerous

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experiments. Researchers examined this issue revealing that VR/AR can facilitate experimental science teaching and learning, to a considerable extent. The research community continued to explore the capabilities of VR/AR, which even though presenting similar technological characteristics with everyday situations, it seemed to gradually promote higher-level cognition (and metacognition). Examples of these issues relate to pedagogical features and design details of VR/AR addressing contemporary educational demands by a ‘digitally competent’ young generation. Due to game-based learning becoming very appealing to learners lately, emphasis is placed by researchers on the ability of VR/AR to employ a game-based approach towards learning, employing game-features. However, other research seems to focus on the social aspect of VR/AR in the educational process. This is due to the novel humancomputer interface features and their undeclared aim to promote interaction between user and applications, as well as amongst users themselves.

5 Discussion - Virtual Reality Versus Artificial Reality Labs In this study, an experimental paper review has been conducted, to detect current trends in VR/AR labs in science teaching and learning. The authors are acutely aware that in this rapidly evolving field, the very definition of what constitutes a state-of-the-art VR or AR experiment is very much a moving target, and highly dependent on one’s budget to acquire novel peripherals. Research in such often-brilliant educational tools (and systems) is progressing rapidly lately, demonstrating notable success, albeit not yet reaching mass-market and hence tending to be out of budgetary reach, for common schools. However, costs diminish when devices (and systems) proliferate – as opposed to been discontinued. Although not seen as altogether insignificant, education is not industry’s main commercial market, and therefore VR and AR peripherals are mainly driven by their adoption in various ICT-based games. Overall cost being of some importance for practical school education (as opposed to universities who tend to have a larger budget), schools can only aim to make the best use of widely available equipment (- which rapidly becomes redundant, anyway). Innovative educational research, on the other hand, inevitably involves Universities in their testing, but even they should aim to astutely predict future trends (including commercial aspects of it), and experiment accordingly, in order to ensure future adoption of their novel tools. Based on the findings of this research it can be argued that VR is seen as an upcoming trend in experimental science teaching. These contemporary educational tools are suggested by teachers, on the one hand as a means to avoid boredom in teaching and learning, while on the other hand act as a lab type that provides substantial benefits to educational practice. Furthermore, technology improvements, user-friendly interfaces, and novel educational approaches, matching the subject matter, student level, student needs and background, resulted in their use in all levels of education (though the prevailing one is in tertiary). This tendency towards VR and enhanced virtual apps is gradually becoming established in the consciousness of the educational community (teachers and pupils). Primary education appreciates the use of VR as it offers better opportunities for cooperation, and promotes motivation to learn. It is worth noticing that, haptic applications are preferred compared to the non-haptic ones and this

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we might assume it may be due to learners’ young age and the need to “touch” to discover the world. On the other hand, VR and AR labs seem to attract secondary education learners both of lower or upper level, causing excitement and interaction that enhance their learning. Among their advantages, is their ability to address effectively students’ misconceptions in science, an issue that is widely recognised by the educational research community as the most significant problem, in general. Regarding the use of VR and/or AR environments in tertiary level, it can be seen that interactivity, creativity, and cognitive skills improvement are considered significant, leading to a positive attitude towards science. The ability of VR/AR apps to enhance spatial perception and offer practical experience cannot be underestimated as students’ appropriate preparation and training for real life academic or professional tasks are considered a priority in this level. Teachers’ attitude towards VR/AR is very positive regarding its implementation in classrooms. However, they emphasize specific requirements for its appropriate integration to learning such as flexibility of subject content, time sufficiency, and incorporation in the curriculum. Regarding the evolution with time leading to VR/AR labs, it can be seen that while there was an initial educational use of 2-dimensional virtual environments, these exhibited many computational and operational drawbacks that made them difficult to use. Eventually these were replaced by 3D virtual software the educational use of which was established for some time now, and which gradually evolved into virtual and augmented reality bona fide labs (both local and remote). Such developments follow the evolution of technology, whose progress mirrored the wealth of computational and financial resources available. Today, learners’ familiarization with contemporary video games, which the relevant industry offers so lavishly and which simulate the real world so effectively, offering interactional and cooperative environments and even promoting interactive online virtual gaming, have managed to urge educational technology take a long step further. The creation of educational VR and AR labs that resemble reality so closely as to be hard to differentiate between virtual, augmented, real, local or remote, thus creating a unified continuum, seems to finally be within our grasp, yet further research is needed as to their optimum use.

References 1. Tsihouridis, Ch., Batsila, M., Vavougios, D., Ioannidis, G.S.: The timeless controversy between virtual and real laboratories in science education-“And the winner is…”. In: Auer, M.E., Guralnick, D., Simonics, I. (eds.) Teaching and Learning in a Digital World. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 2, pp. 1539–1550. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-732014-6_20. ISBN 978-3-319-73203-9 2. Jonassen, D.H.: Computers as Mindtools for Schools: Engaging Critical Thinking, 2nd edn. Prentice Hall, New Jersey (2000). 297 pages 3. Han, I., Black, J.B.: Incorporating haptic feedback in simulation for learning physics. Comput. Educ. 57, 2281–2290 (2011) 4. Freitas, R., Campos, P.: SMART: a SysteM of augmented reality for teaching 2nd grade students. In: Proceedings of the 22nd British HCI Group Annual Conference on HCI 2008: People and Computers XXII: Culture, Creativity, Interaction - Volume 2, BCS HCI, Liverpool, pp. 27–30 (2008)

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Proposal of the Objective Function of Trust for the Dynamic Delegation and Automatic Revocation of Roles Jeanne Roux Ngo Bilong(B) , Adam Ismael Paco Sie, Gervais Mendy, Cheikhane Seyed, Samuel Ouya, Papa Samour Diop, and Djiby Sow Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal {Jeanneroux.ngobilong,gervais.mendy}@ucad.edu.sn, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The question of delegation of roles based on trust level remains ambiguous because, according to the literature, the selection criteria to validate the trust level of are still subjective. In addition, the revocation has limitations because it is not automatically define. In this paper, we propose an improvement of RDBDAC model. The proposed model manage the dynamic delegation of roles, by evaluating the criteria for defining trust level. In addition, we improve the system of automatic revocation of role delegation based on exceptions. We use non-monotonic logic T-JCLASSICδ to perform an axiomatic interpretation of the model. We use UML for the analysis of the system. We implement the model on an e-learning platform. We use WebRTC and Node.js to facilitate real time communication. Our model improves the notion of trust, and implement objective function. It provides an efficient, reliable, easy-to-use and stable platform. The implemented system improves collaborative work. Keywords: Access control

1

· Role · Delegation · Trust · Revocation

Introduction

Access controls remain essential in the management of intelligent systems involving the health, finance and education sectors [1–3]. Such systems integrate collaborative environments that use distributed technologies and allow a group of people to interact virtually [4]. These environments, which are for the most part complex and dynamic, pose new challenges in terms of security [1]. Issues of delegation and trust in role-based access control policies remain paramount. The purpose of the delegation is to have the work performed by sending it to someone else who may be a subordinate or a subject with the same rights as the assignee of the role. Some trust management systems, such as KeyNote and Simple Public Key Infracstructure (SPKI)/Simple Distributed Security Infrastructure (SDSI), use subject qualifications or references to delegate permissions. c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020  M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 206–217, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_21

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Lampson et al. have Examined how a school principal can delegate some of his authority to another directorate [5,6]. Smali et al. integrate trust and privacy issues to manage access controls sensitive to the context of inter-organizational collaboration [4]. Several other works highlighting the notions of trust and delegation were been made [7]. However, in the light of the literature review, this work does not deal with the assessment of the level of trust in the management of role delegations. In our work, we are enhancing the role-based dynamic hybrid access control model (RDBDAC). We evaluate the level of trust of the guardians so that the delegation returns to the guardian who has the highest value of the level of trust. In this model, the confidence threshold alone is not sufficient for role delegation. The rest of our work is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the state of the art of access control models. Section 3 deals with the description of the proposed model. In Sect. 4, we implement the model. Section 5 concludes our paper with an opening for future work.

2

Related Work

Many researchers in the scientific community have taken an interest in trust and delegation-related issues. However, considering trust in the management of delegations requires further reflection. According to Barka and Sandhu in [8], the basic idea of delegation is to have active entities that delegate their power to other active entities in a system. These authors have proposed a Framework (RBDM) that can been used to build a role-based delegation model. In [9], Crampton and Khambhammettu suggested a delegation model that takes into account the assignment and transfer of access rights, in a context of workflow systems. They show that the use of administrative scope to authorise delegations is more efficient than the use of relationships between subjects. They also discuss the execution and revocation of delegations. In [10], Vijayalakshmi Alturi et al. work in workflow systems and extend the notion of delegation to conditional delegation. The implementation of their model requires delegation conditions based on time, workload and task attributes. Several other authors have worked in this direction, with a view to improving delegation-related issues. Zhang et al. [11] presented a role-based delegation model called RDM2000. This model supports hierarchical roles and multi-step delegation. This contribution explored different approaches to delegation and revocation. In [12], Xinwen Zhang et al. proposed a role-based delegation model called PBDM, which controls delegation operations through the notion of delegable roles so that only the permissions assigned to these roles can be delegated. Role-based access control models have improved over time with the integration of additional parameters such as trust. Bonatti and Samarati [13] proposed a Framework based on a policy language and an interaction model to regulate access to network services. Their Framework addresses trust and uses logical rules to access services and prevent unnecessary disclosure of sensitive information. In [14], Winsborough and Li introduced the concept of attribute recognition policies to protect information on sensitive attributes. They then introduced the

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TTG (Trust Target Graph) protocol, which supports the authentication language, recognition policy and distributed storage of authentications. One of the strengths of their work is the protection against the leakage of sensitive information during a negotiation of trust. The authors have developed a trust management system called PeerTrust. Thus, PeerTrust agents conduct automated trust negotiations to gain access to sensitive resources [15]. Phoomvuthisarn [16], has implemented a trust- and role-based access control framework for secure interoperability (TracSI). It integrates a generalized temporal role-based access control (GTRBAC). In [17], Meng et al. propose a dynamic grid trust model called DyGridTrust. It is based on the credibility of the recommendations. This model distinguishes honesty from dishonesty following a recommendation and dynamically adjusts the weight of the trust assessment. In addition, the confidence model allows trust to be obtained in a more objective way, to improve network security. The authors of [18] have developed a method for assessing trust in recommendations. They solve the weighting problem for decision attributes. The studies generated focus more on trust negotiation policies than on the development of trust assessment approaches. However, models emphasizing on trust relationships and delegations have multiplied timidly. Li, Sun et al. [19] propose a multi-level delegation model with trust management in access control systems. They organize delegation tasks into three levels, low, medium and high, depending on the sensitivity of the information contained in the delegation tasks. In this model, the more sensitive the delegated task, the more trustworthy the delegate must be. The authors developed confidence assessment methods to describe a delegate’s history of trust and predict. The authors, Bilong et al. [20], proposed a hybrid model with several parameters such as delegation, trust level and temporal context. On this model, the confidence essentially takes two possible values, “0” or “1”. It manages exceptions by defining the time required to perform the delegated role.

3 3.1

Proposed Model Trust Assessment

The relationship of trust requires considering the subject of the trust relationship, the purpose or the target of trust and the content of trust [8]. In our model, the teacher represents the subject of the relationship of trust, because he delegates his tasks or his role to the guardian whose confidence level is highest; the tutor represents the object of the trust relationship and the role represents the content of the trust relationship. The level of trust reflects the quality of the trust relationship and refers to a quantified category. We represent the highest confidence level by the Trust Max value and the threshold confidence level is represented by the TLT value. The trust threshold represents the minimum level of trust collaboration between the subject and the object. For roles delegation or tasks, the purpose of the trust relationship will have to validate the confidence threshold and, have the better value of trust level in comparison with other objects that could be involved in the trust relationship.

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Determination of the Criteria of Trust: The virtual university of Senegal represents the context of the scope of our model. We are working on predicting the recruitment error of a tutor. This recruitment is based on the evaluation of a set of unweighted criteria. The results of the prediction allow a scoring to be done, in order to determine the most trustworthy tutor. The latter is the one who will benefit from the teacher’s delegation. The criteria used in this model are: academic qualification, quality of academic career, scientific production, professional career, seniority in the structure and experience in distance learning. For this work, we consider that this set of criteria cannot evolve. Each ci criteria corresponds to a value valci assigned to it, with i, the index of the ith criteria. We define the TLT threshold trust level in Eq. 1:  n   valci /n (1) T rustLvelT reshold = T LT = i=1

The objective function of trust can be represented as show in Eq. 2: P urp trustLevel(c1 , c2 , c3 , . . . , cn ) = max(valc1 ) + max(valc2 ) + max(valc3 ) + · · · + max(valcn ) n ∈ N∗

(2)

Trust Assessment Algorithm: Our approach consists in modelling the candidate selection process. The selection process as described in Eq. 3, is a function of a tuple of criteria characterizing a candidate with an associated score. selection ({c : c is criteria of the candidate}) = score

(3)

We propose an implementation of the selection function, using a regression model. This model is obtained using the regression vector support algorithm (SVR) [22]. SVR is a supervised machine learning prediction algorithm. SVR is based on a data matrix D = (ai ,j )1≤i≤m,1≤j≤p+1 (where m represents the number of instances, p the learning criteria and p + 1 the column of values to be predicted) to produce a vector of p elements. Each element represents a weighting of the criterion of the same order. Equation 4 presents the regression function. yi =

p  

wj ∗ xij



j=0

where y i is the predict value x = (1, x1 , x2 , . . . , xp ) the explanative value

(4)

w = (w0 , w1 , w2 , . . . , wp ) the weight vector where w0 is a constante The learning was based on a data set provided by the virtual University of Senegal (UVS). The generation of the prediction model was performed with

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Weka tool [21] version 3.8.3. This generation is obtained by one of the SVR implementations named SMOReg. Table 1 presents the results of this prediction (Fig. 1). Table 1. Confidence level assessment parameters by category Academic qualification

Quality of academy career

Professional Seniority Experience in career distance education

0.0003

0.0003

0.1993

0.1006

0.1993

Algorithm 1. Objectiv Trust For i:=1 to |tutor| do sum value[i].value := 0; sum value[i].tutor := i; For j:=0 to |cat| do if tutor[i] valid cat[j] then sum value[i].value := sum value[i].value + cat[j].value; endif endfor endfor For i:=1 to |sum value| do max := sum value[i].value; For j:=i to |sum value| do if sum value[j].value > max then sum value[i].value := sum value[j].value; sum value[j].value := max; max := sum value[i].value; endif endfor endfor i:= 0; j:= 0; while (i number tutor positions) and (j < |tutor|) do if (j = 0) OR (sum value[j-1].value sum value[j].value) then i++; endif best candidate list add tutor[sum value[j].tutor]; j++; enddo return best candidate list;

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Fig. 1. Algorigram of objectiv trust function

3.2

Suspension and Revocation of Delegation

Suspension of Delegation. The proposed model authorizes the suspension of delegation, when during the execution of the delegation; the previously validated level of trust loses value. For example, the discovery of a parameter value that

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made it possible to calculate the trust level of the object of the delegation, and whose veracity is verified as dubious. Thus, before the time allotted for the delegation expire, the system suspends the delegation of the object (beneficiary of the delegation taken in our context as tutor) in cascade. Below, we define the axioms that respectively allow to delegate tasks or partial delegation, roles and to suspend the delegation in cascade. – Task delegation P ermission ⊆ U seL.Licence Delegation



T rustl evelL.T rust  (5) > T hreshold T rust.T rust GranteeL.Grantor    P rivilegeL.Action T arget.Object DurationL.T ime

– Role Delegation The role delegation view allows for full delegation of role. It defined by the following axiom:  Empower ⊆ U seRD.Role Delegation T rust levelRD.T rust  (6) > T hreshold T rust.T rust AssigneeRD.Grantor   AssignmentRD.Role DurationRD.T ime – Suspension of Delegation  P ermission ⊆ U seL.License Delegation AssigneeL Assignee   P ermissionD.GD Revoke DurationEndL.Licence Delegation (7) Revocation of Delegation. Revocation is the process of recovering the license or delegated role. We represent it axiomatically as follows: P ermission ⊆ U seL.License Delegation   AssigneeL Assignee P ermissionD.GD Revoke  T rustl evelRD.T rust  > T hreshold T rust.T rust DurationEndL.Licence Delegation 3.3

(8)

UML Illustration: Sequence Diagram

The sequence diagram of Fig. 2 illustrates the delegation process, from assigning certificates and roles to revoking delegation, through suspension.

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Fig. 2. Sequence diagram

Description of the sequence diagram: 1. 2. 3. 4.

License assignment by the administrator to teacher. Role assignment by the administrator to users. Delegation of license to the assignee. If trust level = max trust, the assignee delegates one or more tasks to the tutor. 5. The tutor executes task While delegation duration = true and trust level = max trust. 6. If trust level < max trust and delegation duration = true then the task delegation is suspended. 7. If trust level = max trust and delegation duration = false then the task delegation is revoked.

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Implementation of Our Model Tools for Developing and Implementing the Platform

To show the feasibility of our approach, we implemented a platform in the context of the virtual University of Senegal. We used the JEE programming language to develop this platform and for better access control management, we used the Realm tool (Bilong et al. [20]). 4.2

Platform Views

Figure 3 shows the home page to administer the entire application, including configuration and access control management. To do this, the administrator dynamically assigns roles or tutors to different users based on their profiles (Bilong et al. [20]).

Fig. 3. Home page to administer the platform (Bilong et al. [20]).

Figure 4 shows that tutor Alioun Sow benefits from the delegation in view of his status. The tutor Sadio Niang does not benefit from delegation because, although his confidence level is higher than the confidence threshold, he does not have the highest confidence level value of all the tutors. Its status still shows that he is able to be delegable.

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Fig. 4. List of tutors and their trust level status

5

Conclusion

In this article, we propose an improvement of the RDBDAC access control model in intelligent systems. Several models mentioned in the state of the art describe the evolution of role-based access controls. The RDBDAC model is a model that allows dynamic delegation of roles, focusing on parameters such as delegation, trust level and time context. This model does not objectively assess trust because the level of trust of the object essentially considers two Boolean values which are “0” and “1”. Our contribution evaluates the criteria for recruiting a tutor. This evaluation is done using the SVR model. The latter proposes coefficients that best minimize recruitment errors. Based on the predictions obtained, we propose an objective scoring function that allows to evaluate and display the highest level of trust of a tutor. Despite its outstanding result, the SVR model has low noise tolerance, particularly for the selection of support vectors. In our future work, we will predict the margin of error of trust. We will also address issues of availability and suspension of the purpose of the delegation. We will discuss the notion of veracity of the information provided to assess trust. Acknowledgments. We would like to thank the CEA-MITIC consortium for the financial support that made it possible to continue this research project through international exchanges. We would like to thank the General Management of the UCAO Saint Michel for their continual support. We are grateful to Barth´el´emy Patrice YOMI,

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Etienne Eric NEMI and Yao Gaspard BOSSOU for their attentive reading of the document, their constructive criticism and insightful comments.

References 1. Zerkouk, M.: Mod`eles de contrˆ ole d’acc`es dynamiques. Doctoral dissertation, University of Sciences and Technology in Oran (2015) 2. El Kalam, A.A., El Baida, R., Balbiani, P., Benferhat, S., Cuppens, F., Deswarte, Y., Mi`ege, A., Saurel, C., Trouessin, G.: Or-BAC: un mod`ele de contrˆ ole d’acc`es bas´e sur les organisations. Cahiers francophones de la recherche en s´ecurit´e de l’information 1, 30–43 (2003) 3. Bettaz, O., Boustia, N., Mokhtari, A.: Dynamic delegation based on temporal context. Procedia Comput. Sci. 96, 245–254 (2016) 4. Smari, W.W., Clemente, P., Lalande, J.F.: An extended attribute based access control model with trust and privacy: application to a collaborative crisis management system. Futur. Gener. Comput. Syst. 31, 147–168 (2014) 5. Lampson, B., Abadi, M., Burrows, M., Wobber, E.: Authentication in distributed systems: theory and practice. ACM Trans. Comput. Syst. (TOCS) 10(4), 265–310 (1992) 6. Zhang, L., Ahn, G.J., Chu, B.T.: A rule-based framework for role-based delegation and revocation. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. Secur. (TISSEC) 6(3), 404–441 (2003) 7. Gur, N., Bjørnskov, C.: Trust and delegation: theory and evidence. J. Comp. Econ. 45(3), 644–657 (2017) 8. Barka, E., Sandhu, R.: Role-based delegation model/hierarchical roles (RBDM1). In: 20th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, pp. 396–404. IEEE (2004) 9. Crampton, J., Khambhammettu, H.: Delegation in role-based access control. Int. J. Inf. Secur. 7(2), 123–136 (2008) 10. Atluri, V., Warner, J.: Security for workflow systems. In: Handbook of Database Security, pp. 213–230. Springer, Boston (2008) 11. Zhang, L., Ahn, G.J., Chu, B.T.: A rule-based framework for role-based delegation and revocation. ACM Trans. Inform. Syst. Secur. (TISSEC) 6(3), 404–441 (2003) 12. Zhang, X., OH, S., Sandhu, R.: PBDM: a flexible delegation model in RBAC. In: Proceedings of the Eighth ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies, pp. 149–157 (2003) 13. Bonatti, P., Samarati, P.: Regulating service access and information release on the web (2000) 14. Winsborough, W.H., Li, N.: Towards practical automated trust negotiation. In: Proceedings Third International Workshop on Policies for Distributed Systems and Networks, pp. 92–103. IEEE (2002) 15. Nejdl, W., Olmedilla, D., Winslett, M.: PeerTrust: automated trust negotiation for peers on the semantic web. In: Workshop on Secure Data Management, pp. 118–132. Springer, Heidelberg, August 2004 16. Phoomvuthisarn, S.: Trust and role based access control for secure interoperation (“TracSI”). In: 2007 International Symposium on Communications and Information Technologies, pp. 1458–1463. IEEE, October 2007 17. Meng, W., Xia, H., Song, H.: A dynamic trust model based on recommendation credibility in grid domain. In: 2009 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering, pp. 1–4. IEEE, December 2009

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´ 18. Zhao, B., Xiao, C., Zhang, Y., et al.: Evaluation de la confiance des recommandations pour le contrˆ ole d’acc`es dans les r´eseaux ouverts. Clust. Comput. 22(1), 565–571 (2019) 19. Li, M., Sun, X., Wang, H., Zhang, Y.: Multi-level delegations with trust management in access control systems. J. Intell. Inf. Syst. 39(3), 611–626 (2012) 20. Bilong, J.R.N., Seyed, C., Mendy, G., Ouya, S., Gaye, I.: Proposal of a dynamic access control model based on roles and delegation for intelligent systems using realm. In: Auer, M., Tsiatsos, T. (eds.) The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education, ICL 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 916 (2019) 21. Hall, M., Frank, E., Holmes, G., Pfahringer, B., Reutemann, P., Witten, I.H.: The WEKA data mining software: an update. SIGKDD Explor. Newsl. 11, 10–18 (2009) 22. Basak, D., Pal, S., Patranabis, D.C.: Support vector regression. Neural Inf. Process. Lett. Rev. 11(10), 203–224 (2007)

Using Active Learning Integrated with Pedagogical Aspects to Enhance Student’s Learning Experience in Programming and Related Concepts Asanthika Imbulpitiya(&), Nuwan Kodagoda, Anjalie Gamage, and Kushnara Suriyawansa Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Malabe, Sri Lanka {asanthika.i,nuwan.k,anjalie.g,kushnara.s}@sliit.lk

Abstract. Teaching programming concepts and skills to beginners is a challenging and daunting task. As undergraduates, students struggle with understanding the fundamental concepts of programming and learning the syntaxes to build up a solution to an existing problem. The main challenges in delivering an introductory programming module are to get the students actively engaged within and outside the classroom and to increase the level of interest towards programming. Many researchers have tried out using different active learning tools and techniques to engage students in the learning process interactively. Even though lot of different techniques and tools have been introduced with time there is still a reluctancy among the learners and academics to move from the traditional teacher centric learning environment to a more interactive student centric environment. This research is focusing on how active learning integrated with pedagogical aspects can be used in an introductory programming module and the effectiveness of it when compared with a traditional approach. Keywords: Active learning
Pedagogy
Programming
Experiential learning

1 Introduction Teaching programming languages to a novice programmer can be considered as a major challenge in undergraduate education. Similarly, students face many challenges in the learning process to identify the proper syntax in a programming language along with the logic to maneuver a solution to an existing problem. This includes lot of different steps in designing, implementing and testing the solution in a proper manner. A research done by Robins et al. (2003) explains the difference between novice and expert programmers. They further categorize novice programmers as effective and ineffective where effective students can learn without much effort and assistance. The authors have pointed out that it would be better to create opportunities for more programmers to learn by themselves by providing interactive facilities. Lot of past research explain the challenges of teaching and learning programming modules for novices. Certain studies explain that some concepts of programming were © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 218–228, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_22

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harder to understand and require more engagement of students with teachers in practical work sessions (McCracken et al. 2001; Shaari and Ahmed 2017). To overcome these challenges the education system has mostly moved from being teacher centric to student centric. Lot of different mechanisms have been introduced from time to time to overcome problems and challenges which arise in the teaching and learning process of programming and related concepts to the novice programmers. 1.1

Psychological Aspects of Learning

Psychological aspects of a learner have a direct impact on the success of a learning process. Entwistle has described three psychological matters that directly has an influence on learning (Entwistle 2012). According to this study, learning process relies on three psychological factors, logical reasoning, memory and imaginative thinking of the learner. It concludes that there is a significant relationship between education and psychology. In addition, one of the key final conclusions of this study proves the psychological importance of active learning over passive learning in higher education. It further describes how activity based learning is vital in effective learning. Baumrind has claimed cognitive component, affective component and behavioral component as the three psychological dimensions that drives learner engagement, which reasons for an effective learning (Baumrind 2018). It further describes that all three dimensions equally contribute towards effective learning through learner engagement. In this study, learner’s creativity and curiosity with the application of multiple thinking processes are defined under the cognitive component. Affective component includes the overall positive emotions towards the learning. Behavioral component describes the motivation, self-directedness and persistency of the learner. Both aforementioned studies emphasize how active learning with self-engagement is important for an effective learning experience in any higher education environment. This fact has also been proved specifically for learning programming as well. Authors of the poster (Traynor and Gibson 2004) have stated that programming is a more popular and challenging topic to learn at present. It has shown that the use of multiplechoice questions and providing automated instant feedback for the learners have a significant positive effect in learning programming. It further describes how it is advantageous for a programming learner to review his or her own incorrect answers which will assist to clarify uncertain facts in the learning domain. Popat and Starkey (2017) have proposed five key themes influenced in learning programming. One of these five key themes focus on self-management and active learning. The study concludes that there is a significant increase in learner’s progress and motivation towards learning programming via conducting activities in a selfcontrolled learning environment. 1.2

Pedagogy and Active Learning

Pedagogy can be defined as effective strategies used in enhancing the learning experience of the learner. The main goal of pedagogy is to make the learning process smooth and let the learner achieve the maximum benefit from the learning environment (Bhowmik et al. 2013). Over the years there have been many pedagogical standards

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and principals proposed in order to maintain as a guideline to achieve pedagogical aspects in a learning environment. Twelve principles of effective learning and teaching discussed in (Astin et al. 1990) provide information on a set of pedagogical aspects that will help in maintaining a proper learning environment. In this study, authors have mentioned the active learning as a key factor that can be used to enhance the learning process. It further explains that active learning can be achieved through practical sessions, discussions with other learners, team projects, structured exercises, and research projects. Gagné’s Nine Events of Instructions proposed by Robert Gagne is one of the most famous guidelines of pedagogy. Gagne and Wager (1992) have discussed about the nine events of instructions with some approaches to achieve these instructions. According to this study, effective pedagogy can be achieved through gaining the attention of the learner, informing the learner about the objectives, recalling prior knowledge of the learner, attractively presenting the content, providing guidance in learning, actively participating the learner in classroom, providing feedback to the learner, assessing the performance of the learner and allowing learners to explore the knowledge. Thus, it can conclude that the active learning directly contributes towards achieving pedagogical aspect through focusing on actively participating the learner in the learning process. Active learning is one of the most widespread learning techniques discussed at present. It has been determined that there are many advantages in active learning over the traditional passive learning. Hence, many educational organizations are leaning towards implementing an active learning environment. Granic and Lu (2008), have explained many advantages of active learning. They have described active learning as a combination of learner’s active participation, experimental learning and action learning. Dominguez (2019) has defined active learning as a method that makes the learner more responsible in learning. It describes how this results in increasing the learner motivation and satisfaction. In this study, authors have discussed about three techniques to implement active learning. These three techniques are project-based learning, flipped classroom and, collaborative and cooperative work. Another study conducted by Greer et al. (2019) discusses the effect of active learning in programming. In this study, authors have conducted an experiment to analyze the effect of introducing active learning concepts in a programming classroom. Active learning is considered as a pedagogical approach in the experiments in this study. The results of these experiments have concluded that there is a remarkable advancement in learning with active learning concepts in a programming learning environment. It further discusses about the importance of the effective use of active learning tools in order to achieve enhanced results. Chakravorty et al. (2019) have also conducted an experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of active learning approaches by using early undergraduates with the same level of knowledge. The experiment has been conducted in a way that the students have the freedom to self-experience the concepts they have learned with a limited assistant from the instructors. The results of this experiment have shown that inter-active nature provided in the learning environment has motivated the learners and enhanced the learning experience.

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2 Purpose or Goal Teaching programming and related skills to beginners can be considered as one of the main challenges the educators can come across in undergraduate studies. Even students face lot of difficulties in the learning process to grab some of the concepts in programming. In today’s world, students prefer active learning techniques compared to traditional teaching approaches as they are experienced in using technology. This research is focused on finding the impact of introducing different active learning tools in delivering an introductory programming module. Tools and techniques that support active learning were integrated into the learning and teaching environment with minimal effort, to figure out the students’ in and out classroom interactions and enthusiasm towards programming. The main objective of this research is to identify how active learning integrated with pedagogical aspects can be used in an introductory programming module conducted as a part of a computer science undergraduate degree program to increase students’ interest and engagement in programming. Sequentially a comparative analysis is conducted to identify the impact of using interactive learning tools instead of the traditional mode of delivery.

3 Methodology This research was a comparative study conducted in two consecutive semesters with a sample size of 200 students who are following an Information Technology degree program at Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology. In the first semester a traditional approach was used whereas in the following semester active learning techniques such as online interactive quizzes, online coding platform and auto grading of tutorial code submissions were used in delivering the 1st year Object Oriented Concepts (OOC) module. The OOC module is a year 1 module that provides students an introduction to object oriented concepts. The students also learn how to implement their object oriented design in C++. The lectures consisted of 1 h traditional face to face lecture and a 1 h tutorial and 2 h lab session which were conducted in a computer lab. In addition, the students were provided additional weekly resources complimenting the material that the students learnt. In the Tutorial the students were given one hour to work on a problem and submit their solution. We used the Classroom feature of repl.it1 an online code editor to host the Tutorial questions given to the students. repl.it allows a lecturer to host multiple programming questions with partial skeleton code. The student works on the solution using the repl.it online IDE and submits their solution. Classroom allows several approaches of testing the student submission. The main approach is to use a series of black box test cases to validate the solution. This allowed the student to self check if their submitted code was a valid solution. Since repl.it classrooms are free it provides a simple solution to do automatic code checking2. In the Lecturers view, lecturers can see

1 2

Repl.IT can be accessed through https://repl.it/. Free for up to 200 students in a class.

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each of the student submissions. Students were expected to work on the Tutorials by themselves and work on a solution without any assistant from the lab instructors. The facility to validate one’s answer encouraged students to work on their solutions independently (See Figs. 1 and 2).

Fig. 1. Repl.it lecturer view

Fig. 2. Repl.it assignment view (tutorial)

The labs were self-guided where instructors were present to facilitate the students and some work had to be done by pairs to encourage peer-learning. Interactive Moodle quizzes were used to engage the students as indicated in Fig. 3. The students were given feedback before moving onto the next question.

Fig. 3. Interactive Moodle quiz

At the end of each week students were given a homework which mainly consisted of spending 30 min looking at specific videos, text and writing code which went beyond what was covered in the lectures. Students were encouraged to explore topics beyond what was taught in class to motivate self-driven learning. A five minute quiz was conducted in the labs that captured the content of the homework carried out. Students were also provided additional links to relevant book chapters, tutorials and videos to explore the content beyond what was taught in class. The table below summarizes the active learning activities conducted which were derived from the related psychological and active learning aspects as per the past literature (Table 1).

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Table 1. Mapping of used activities with psychological and learning aspects Activity

Psychological and active learning aspect(s) implemented

References

Use of interactive quizzes

Structured questions Learner’s active participation Self-directedness Provide instant feedbacks Review his/her own answers Conducting activities in a self-controlled learning environment Providing feedback Assessing the performance of the learner Students have the freedom to self-experience Conducting activities in a self-controlled learning environment Assessing the performance of the learner Experimental learning Practice and skills on actual program developing Conducting activities in a self-controlled learning environment Experimental learning Students have the freedom to self-experience Practice and skills on actual program developing Conducting activities in a self-controlled learning environment Experimental learning Students have the freedom to self-experience Discussions with other learners, Team projects Collaborative and cooperative work Allowing learners to explore the knowledge

Astin et al. (1990) Granic and Lu (2008)

Auto grading of tutorial code submissions and allow students to self-check if their submitted code was a valid solution

Use of multiple programming questions, with partial skeleton code in tutorials

Students are instructed to work on tutorials by themselves and work on a solution without any assistant from the lab instructors

Self-guided labs where instructors will help students when they need assistance

Conduct lab sessions where students have to work in pairs

Encouraged to explore topics beyond what was taught in class via additional links to relevant book chapters, tutorials and videos

(Baumrind 2018) Traynor and Gibson (2004) Traynor and Gibson (2004) Popat and Starkey (2017)

Gagne and Wager (1992) Gagne and Wager (1992) Chakravorty et al. (2019) Popat and Starkey (2017)

Gagne and Wager (1992) Granic and Lu (2008) Robins et al. (2003) Popat and Starkey (2017)

Granic and Lu (2008) Chakravorty et al. (2019) Robins et al. (2003) Popat and Starkey (2017)

Granic and Lu (2008) Chakravorty et al. (2019) Astin et al. (1990) Dominguez (2019) Gagne and Wager (1992)

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Primary data collection was carried out with a structured questionnaire distributed among the selected sample. A quantitative research approach was used to analyze the collected data for both semesters.

4 Results The initial offering of the module was done in rather a traditional manner whereas the second offering was consisting with Active Learning concepts to enhance the student engagement towards the subject. A comparative analysis was done between the student performance of both semesters with a sample of 200 students where a significant increase of the pass rate was shown in the latter semester with a 13% of improvement. A comparative analysis of student performance is given in Table 2. Table 2. Comparative analysis of student performance in 2017 and 2018 Parameters No of students (Sample) Passed Failed pass % Fail % Average mark Std. deviation Percentage improvements (Pass rate)

2017 200 141 59 70.50 29.50 51.83 16.07 13%

2018 200 167 33 83.50 16.50 56.33 15.24

A survey was conducted at the end of the 2nd semester where Active Learning concepts were introduced to gain an idea about the student’s perception towards the newly introduced concepts. The survey consisted of two sections addressing the student experience of overall course and introducing repl.it and other related mechanisms. The student feedback was captured through a rating system. The questions used to collect the feedback are as follows: Q1. How would you rate the delivery of lectures in an interactive manner? Q2. How would you rate the experience of using repl.it for tutorials? Q3. How would you rate the experience of trying out tutorials as pair work and quizzes? Q4. What is your opinion about having homework which allows the out of class engagement? Q5. Using repl.it was an interesting way to do a tutorial in programming module. Q6. Tutorial Questions with Pair work and quizzes were very interactive. Q7. Doing Homework was interesting and helped me to understand the subject better. Q1–Q4 considered the student ratings for different aspects of the overall course whereas Q5–Q7 captured specific perceptions of each mechanism.

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Over 92% of students has rated the interactive lecture delivery was “Excellent”, “Very Good” and “Good” with the minority has said otherwise (See Fig. 4). Also introducing repl.it had gain a positive review from the students where 96.5% have rated it as a good mechanism to conduct tutorials (See Fig. 5). Further, 82% of students had agreed on the fact that repl.it is an interactive and interesting tool (See Fig. 6). Based on that it can be safely concluded that majority of the students were interested in the new tool and was keen to learn through that.

Fig. 4. Analysis of interactive lectures

Fig. 5. Analysis of using repl.it

Fig. 6. Experience of using repl.it

Introduction of homework has been rated with positive remarks of 83.5%. Even though the ratings are similar compared to the above discussed mechanisms with the drop of positive rating and the increase of negative ratings it can be considered that students have some lack of enthusiasm towards doing homework (See Fig. 7). 22% of students had agreed on the fact that homework is interesting and helped them to understand the subject better. (See Fig. 8).

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Some positive comments received for the overall course include: • “It is a good and interesting way of doing tutorials during lab sessions with repl.it”. • “it is very helpful and interesting also memory refreshing so I really like this idea hope this will use in future too”. • “It is better working as a pair, can discuss questions together”. • “repl.it is a good platform to practice coding, personally I recommend to keep it in the current way”.

Fig. 7. Analysis of homework

Fig. 8. Experience of doing homework

Also, some constructive comments include: • “sometimes kind of difficult…. it is difficult and interesting for me”. • “home works are good but there is too much to refer and it is complicated and also it will be much easy if the homework are less”. • “Most of the time it is hard to focus on the homework material due to the workload and projects of other modules”.

5 Discussion and Conclusion The results of this research clearly shows that changing the teaching and learning methods of students will have a higher percentage of their achievement during examinations. And also, the feedback clearly indicates that introduction of new tools and methods inspires and motivates the students to learn more challenging subjects with technical and logical thinking in a more enthusiastic manner. The new innovations of IT industry always pave way for advancement in the teaching and learning in higher education sector. The new tools developed cater for students’ individual needs in their learning curve and also have the ability to understand the students’ capabilities, learning patterns and the pace. These technologies help the teacher to cater for a wider audience and also makes it easier to evaluate larger student population. The individual feedback given by these tools helps students to get feedback instantly and therefore it helps to expedite the learning process. (Eg: in repl.it

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the students can submit the code they have written, and the system can evaluate and give feedback if the code has errors and if the output doesn’t match with the expected output). After implementing the new teaching methods, the pass rate of the module has significantly improved which indicates that the students were able to grasp the programming concepts more effectively and also, they enjoyed learning a subject which earlier students thought was difficult. Also there was a significant increase in student attendance in labs and tutorials due to the weekly assessments conducted. The students were also enthusiastic about the content in the lectures. Therefore, it is evident that using tools and concepts of active learning has been effective in achieving the learning objectives of the programming module and also it is recommended to use such tools whenever possible in teaching difficult or technical concepts where practical knowledge (acquiring skills) is important.

References Astin, A.W., Bowen, H., Boyer, C.H., Cross, K.P., Eble, K., Edgerton, R., Gaff, J., Katz, J., Robert Pace, C., Peterson, M.W., Richardson Jr., R.C.: Twelve Principles of Effective Teaching and Learning, pp. 3–5 (1990) Baumrind, D.: Psychology in action. Res. Ethics (2018). https://doi.org/10.4324/978131524 4426-34 Bhowmik, M., Roy, B.B., Banerjee, J.: Role of pedagogy in effective teaching. Basic Res. J. Educ. Res. Rev. 2, 1–5 (2013) Chakravorty, D.K., Pennings, M.“Maikel,” Liu, H., Wei, Z.“Sheldon,” Rodriguez, D.M., Jordan, L.T., McMullen, D.”Rick”, Ghaffari, N., Le, S.D., Rodriquez, D., Buchanan, C., Gober, N.: Evaluating active learning approaches for teaching intermediate programming at an early undergraduate level. J. Comput. Sci. Educ. 10(1), 61–66 (2019). https://doi.org/10.22369/ issn.2153-4136/10/1/10 Dominguez: Active learning techniques in engineering education. Int. J. Res. Eng. Technol. 03(11), 462–465 (2019). https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0311079 Entwistle, N.: Styles of Learning and Teaching (Routledge, Ed.), 2nd edn. David Fulton Publishers, New York (2012) Gagne, R.M., Wager, W.W.: Principles of Instructional Design, 4th edn, p. 153. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, Forth Worth (1992) Granic, I., Lu, S.: Active learning: effects of core training design elements on self-regulatory processes, learning, and adaptability. J. Appl. Psychol. 93(2), 296–316 (2008). https://doi.org/ 10.1037/0021-9010.93.2.296 Greer, T., Hao, Q., Jing, M., Barnes, B.: On the effects of active learning environments in computing education, pp. 267–272 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287345 McCracken, M., Wilusz, T., Almstrum, V., Diaz, D., Guzdial, M., Hagan, D., Kolikant, Y.B.-D., Laxer, C., Thomas, L., Utting, I.: A multi-national, multi-institutional study of assessment of programming skills of first-year CS students. ACM SIGCSE Bull. 33(4), 125 (2001). https:// doi.org/10.1145/572139.572181 Popat, S., Starkey, L.: Learning to code or coding to learn? A systematic review. Comput. Educ. 128, 365–376 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.10.005

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Robins, A., Rountree, J., Rountree, N.: Learning and teaching programming: a review and discussion. Comput. Sci. Educ. 13(2), 137–172 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1076/csed.13.2.137. 14200 Shaari, H., Ahmed, N.: Improving performance and progression of novice programmers: factors considerations. Int. J. Inf. Educ. Technol. 8(1), 7–10 (2017). https://doi.org/10.18178/ijiet. 2018.8.1.1003 Traynor, D., Gibson, J.P.: Implementing cognitive modeling in CS education: aligning theory and practice of learning. In: CELDA, New York, pp. 535–536 (2004)

Collaboratively Learning and Developing a Tool Kit for GPS Anti-jamming GPS Anti-jamming Using Antenna Array Syed Masaab Ahmed, Muhammad Zain Ul Abiden, Muhammad Minhaj Arshad, and Sarmad Ahmed Shaikh(&) PAF-KIET, Karachi, Pakistan [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. In this paper, we propose to collaboratively learn and develop a training kit/material i.e., global positioning system (GPS) anti-jamming using antenna array, for junior engineers of information and communication technology (ICT) and related fields. When a signal is transmitted from the GPS satellite, it can be jammed by various techniques in the space. Due to increased usage of GPS applications in daily life, it has been found that many ICT students are interested to learn and visualize its core functionality especially about the GPS anti-jamming in their major communication courses. Although antijamming can be obtained by various techniques, using antenna array and RF couplers to achieve anti-jamming is an interesting technique which we aim to explore in this paper as a part of collaborative learning and developing educational tool to be helpful for junior ICT students. Keywords: Collaborative learning
ICT
Training kit
GPS
Anti-jamming

1 Introduction The scope of interactive collaborative learning is increasing currently where many researchers come under a common goal and start to develop the solutions of the problems specially related to engineering education. This approach of collaboratively learning and developing can be significant helpful in enhancing the engineering labs and human skills. Bearing this in mind, we are interested to develop the new lab tools/kits for the microwave and antenna (M&A) course in our Avionics Engineering department at Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology (KIET), Pakistan. In this regard, a project related to global positioning system (GPS) i.e., GPS anti-jamming using antenna array, has been assigned to a group of three members of bachelor degree program as their final year project. The aim is to bring students under the supervision of a professor and enable them to develop a local product which could be used as a lab tool kit of information and communication technology (ICT) students. The GPS provides geolocation and time information to the users. GPS was first designed for military purposes, but now it is also available for commercial purposes. It provides navigational information from 20,000 km above from the earth. After the technological revolution © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 229–239, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_23

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numerous artifacts rely on GPS. In some cases, the absence of the GPS can cause disturbances in daily operations. On the other hand a GPS jammer is a device used to conceal one’s whereabouts by sending radio signals of the same frequency as the GPS device. Once this occurs, the GPS device is unable to determine its position due to interference. The GPS jamming unit itself is typically a small, self-contained, transmitter that generates a 1575.42 MHz interference signal over a 5 to 10 m radius [1]. To recover jamming effects from a receiver many different anti-jamming techniques have been designed. Phase nulling technique in [2] consists of GPS antenna array that is able to reject jamming signals from two different directions. The GPS array consists of five antenna elements of equal amplitude and different phases. This technique is attractive but complex and difficult to understand for the ICT students. RF ASIC is another method for anti-jamming described in [3] where it converts analog signal to digital and then perform anti-jamming. This method, being complex in terms of applying the signal processing sophisticated techniques, does not seem reliable for the designing of a simple training kit as we are interested. In this work, a group of final year project’s students and their relative field supervisor have come up with a new idea of anti-jamming technique using array of microstrip patch antenna and radio frequency (RF)-coupler. While designing a training kit as a collaborative work it is obligatory to achieve best results. Since patch antennas can be printed on printed circuit board (PCB), PCB RT/Duroid 5880 PCB is considered to accomplish the best results and efficiency. The proposed training kit has been designed at 1.575 GHz frequency (L1 band) of GPS. Antenna array technique is designed to discriminate jamming and GPS signals and recover the original GPS signal coming from satellite. Antenna arrays with anti-jamming capability are desirable in GPS applications because of the intentional interference and the increasingly polluted electromagnetic environment [4, 5]. This paper describes how the training kit have been designed and on what parameters. In this paper, Sect. 2 describes design and working principles of the proposed method. In Sect. 3, we show achieved simulation results and their importance. Finally, we conclude the paper in Sect. 4.

2 Design and Working Principle Figure 1 shows the block diagram of the proposed GPS anti-jamming antenna array tool kit. The design consists of two major components i.e., Microstrip Patch Antenna used for the reception of GPS signals and a 180° Hybrid Rat-race Ring Coupler. This approach of using antenna array and RF couplers to achieve anti-jamming is an interesting technique, as a part of collaborative learning and developing educational tool, which will be helpful for junior ICT students to understand the basic concepts of GPS signals, jamming signals and anti-jamming technique.

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Fig. 1. Block diagram of proposed antenna system for GPS anti-jamming

2.1

Microstrip Patch Antenna

This training kit is designed at 1.575 GHz frequency which is the L1 band of GPS. Since most of the ICT students are familiar with antenna and well known with the techniques and procedures that are used in signal anti-jamming, in this kit microstrip patch antennas have been designed. Microstrip patch antennas are used in mobile phones and Satellite/GPS communication. Reasons to choose microstrip patch antenna for anti-jamming are its comfortability to planar and non-planar surfaces, simplicity and inexpensiveness to manufacture. We have designed microstrip patch antenna using an electromagnetic simulator. Following steps shows the patch antenna design parameters which we used to design while more details about patch antenna design can be found in [6] (Fig. 2). Step 1: Calculation of the Width (W) C qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

W¼ 2f0

2 er þ 1

Step 2: Calculation of the Effective Dielectric Constant (eeff ). This is based on the height (h), dielectric constant of the dielectric (er ) and the calculated width of the patch antenna (W). eeff ¼

ð e r þ 1Þ ð e r  1Þ h 1 ½1 þ 12  2 2 2 W

Step 3: Calculation of the Effective length (Leff ) Leff ¼

C pffiffiffiffiffiffi 2fo eeff

Step 4: Calculation of the extension length (DL)

Fig. 2. The typical design of a microstrip patch antenna.

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DL ¼

0:412h ðeeff þ 0:3Þ ðW h þ 0:264Þ W ðe  0:258Þ ð þ 0:8Þ eff

h

Step 5: Calculation of actual/physical length of the patch L ¼ Leff  2DL

2.2

Hybrid Rat-Race 180° Ring Coupler

Using RF couplers to this training kit helps ICT students to learn about the different techniques of power combiner, phase shifter and different uses of RF couplers. Hybrid ring coupler is a type of coupler used in RF and microwave systems. The couplers are fundamental and important passive circuits in wireless front ends to couple the RF signals. Couplers can be incorporated with the balanced mixers, balanced power amplifiers, antenna feed networks, measurement systems, and so on. As the communication and technology students they will be able to learn about the couplers working principles and how it is effective in anti-jamming technique. The working principle of the rate race coupler is straight forward to be explained. When we excite the two input ports, hereP in labeled with ports 3 and 4 in Fig. 3, with any desired two RF signals, then at port 2 ( - port), both signals from the two input ports arrive with the same phase but opposite in direction, due to same P length distances (k/4 − k/4 = 0° phase difference), and combine to give the sum ( ) of the applied signals. While on other hand, at

Fig. 3. Overview of 180° HRR coupler layout design.

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port 1 (D- port), both signals from the input ports arrive with opposite phase i.e., 180° due to different length distances (3k/4 − k/4 = k/2 180° phase difference), and combined to give the difference (D) of the applied signals. More details about the coupler design can be found in this paper in [8]. 2.3

Antenna and Coupler’s Integration

Due to low profile and easy to fabricate, microstrip patch antennas array combined with hybrid rat race (HRR) couplers provide a simplified method to mitigate the jamming signal from the original GPS signal and is easy to explain to the ICT junior students. In our proposed methodology, two microstrip patch antennas array and two 180° HRR couplers are integrated to perform the GPS anti-jamming in the L1 band (1.575 GHz). We have simulated the proposed system that is shown in Fig. 4. In Fig. 4, the first patch antenna receives a jamming plus GPS signal which is sent towards first coupler’s input port (port 3). While, on port 4, we provide a GPS reference signal to achieve the jamming signal only on difference port (diff port). Furthermore, the second patch antenna’s signal (jamming plus GPS) is input to the port 3 of second coupler which is also input on port 4 with jamming signal coming from the first coupler’s diff port. Thus, we achieve original GPS signal at diff port of coupler 2 easily by utilizing simple arithmetic i.e., add and subtract, type coupler.

Fig. 4. Layout design of the proposed system.

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3 Simulation Results and Outcomes First, a microstrip patch antenna and a coupler have been designed separately at 1.575 GHz frequency and optimized to achieve the best possible results. Figure 5a, b, c, and d shows the layout design, scattering parameters, 3D radiation pattern, and 2D antenna parameters, respectively, of the designed patch antenna.

a) Layout design of patch antenna

c) 3D radiation pattern.

b) ScaƩering parameter (S11)

d) Antenna parameters.

Fig. 5. Simulated patch antenna and observed performance parameters.

Furthermore, Fig. 6a, b, c, and d shows the designed coupler, obtained scattering parameters of all four ports (S11, S22, S33, S44), phase difference for sum port (0°) i.e., S31 and S41, and phase difference for difference port (180°) i.e., S32 and S42, respectively.

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a)

Designed RF coupler.

b)

ScaƩering parameters.

Fig. 6. Designed RF coupler and its performance parameters.

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c) 0 degree phase difference for sum port of the coupler.

d) 180 degree phase difference for the difference port of the coupler.

Fig. 6. (continued)

The operation of patch antenna array and coupler can be validated by steering the beam in a desired direction angle. Whereas the sum and difference ports are excited by the following expressions which provide the phase difference of 0° and 180°, respectively, on the Sum and Diff ports to steer the beam. Sum ¼ 1 þ expjkdsinh ;

ð1Þ

Diff ¼ 1  expjkdsinh ;

ð2Þ

Where, k, d, and h, represent the wave number, spacing between antennas, and desired direction angle, respectively. The obtained various simulated results of power beam steering are shown in Fig. 7 with its circuit design. The results show better matching and proper functioning of the antenna array and RF coupler which validate the operation of the proposed system for anti-jamming.

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a)

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Layout Design of beam steering circuit to validate the anti-jamming operation.

b)

beam steering results at ±

°.

Fig. 7. Beam steering circuit and its performance results.

After optimization of microstrip patch antenna and RF coupler by beam steering method, the layout design of the anti-jamming circuit (shown in Fig. 4) has been simulated. Figure 8 shows the simulation results of the layout design in terms of scattering parameters which shows that the designed circuit works fine at the desired frequency. The obtained return loss parameters are less than −20 dB which shows good matching of patch antenna array and coupler. Moreover, we are now in second phase of fabrication and validation of the complete system and making the lab material.

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Fig. 8. Simulated scattering results of the proposed system

4 Conclusion In this paper, it has been found that encouraging the students to collaboratively learn and shape the idea related to ICT field has positive impact on developing a training/lab material that could be used for class demonstration. In order to encourage the students to learn new techniques and to develop local equipment, we proposed a project to be executed by last year bachelor degree program students to develop a new training/lab kit for microwave and antennas lab to be used by junior students. Thus, as a sample of collaborative learning and development, we design a GPS anti-jamming kit using antenna array. Due to low profile and easy to fabricate, microstrip patch antennas array combined with hybrid rat race (HRR) couplers provide a simplified method to mitigate the jamming signal from the original GPS signal and is helpful to explain to the ICT junior students. This training tool kit was designed at 1.575 GHz (L1 band) of GPS. This kit basically is designed for ICT students but can be used in other fields as well. We are currently working on this system to make it more precise and easy to fabricate. Acknowledgement. The authors wish to acknowledge the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan for the financial support of bachelors engineering students with their relative field Professor to carry out this research work and their final year project at KIET Karachi, Pakistan.

References 1. Zhang, Y.D., Amin, M.G.: Anti-jamming GPS receiver with reduced phase distortions. IEEE Signal Process. Lett. 19(10), 635–638 (2012) 2. Wu, K., Zhang, L., Shen, Z., Zheng, B.: An anti-jamming 5-element GPS antenna array using phase-only nulling. In: 2006 6th International Conference on ITS Telecommunications, Chengdu, pp. 370–373 (2006) 3. Kim, H.-S., Kim, B.-G., Moon, S.-W., Kim, S.-H.: Design of a high dynamic-range RF ASIC for anti-jamming GNSS receiver. JPNT 4(3), 115–122 (2015)

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4. Brown, A.: High accuracy GPS performance using a digital adaptive antenna array. In: Proceedings of ION National Technical Meeting, Long Beach, CA, January 2001 5. Brown, A., Reynolds, D., Tseng, H.W., Norgard, J.: Miniaturized GPS antenna array technology. In: Proceedings of the ION 55th Annual Meeting, Cambridge, June 1999 6. Carver, K., Mink, J.: Microstrip antenna technology. IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag. 29(1), 2–24 (1981) 7. Kizilbey, O., Palamutçuoğullari, O.: 3.3–3.7 GHz 180° hybrid coupler design. In: 30th URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, vol. 2, no. 4, August 2011 8. Shaikh, S.A., Tonello, A.M.: Performance analysis of 180° HRR coupler used for direction finding with an antenna array. Int. J. Online Biomed. Eng. 13(10), 86–102 (2017)

Engineering Slam as a Project of Popularizing Sciences and Engineering Competencies Zulfiya Kadeeva, Alla A. Kaybiyaynen(&), Olga Lisina, and Elena Turner Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russian Federation [email protected]

Abstract. This paper deals with the Engineering Slam Project that was conceived and is being implemented at the engineering university in order to awake students’ interest in engineering professions and in new trends in science, engineering, and applied areas. Engineering Slam represents sessions with experts, in the course of which informal communication takes place, as well as direct dialogs, discussions, and answers to questions. The speakers present their developments and their businesses. This is a kind of a “battle” among the speakers, resulting in assessing all presentations and identifying the best ones. Engineering Slam allows demonstrating to young people all the facets of scientific and engineering activities in the context of the digitalization of economy and industry 4.0, push the boundaries of research and project-related thought in engineering areas, and involve school, college and university students into the process of technology entrepreneurship and in commercializing the results obtained. Keywords: Engineering Slam
Project of popularization of science
Project of popularization of engineering competencies

1 Introduction Currently, the new, informal methods and techniques are extremely topical, which are aimed at developing in young people the interest in engineering vocations, in scientific research and development in the areas of engineering and technology, and in being involved in the process of engineering entrepreneurship [4]. However, interest in engineering professions is falling globally today, which lead to the situation where increasingly fewer young people choose engineering education. One of the most important challenges nowadays is provoking interest of children and university students in mathematics and engineering occupations starting from their school days. According to this fact, engineering universities worldwide try to motivate school students to select technical subjects and engineering professions as their future careers. In this respect, we need to develop new approaches and innovative solutions [1–3]. The main goal of this study is analyzing, generalizing, and extending the experiences in implementing the Engineering Slam project aimed at popularizing engineering professions and the new, promising areas of developing science, engineering, and technology. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 240–245, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_24

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The goals are achieved through the unity of research tasks and the program of joint actions to be performed by the university, government agencies, and partner enterprises to implement the Engineering Slam project. We assumed that involving governmental authorities and the university’s partner enterprises in conducting intellectual competitions and contests would allow attracting young people to engineering professions. We also think that one of the efficient forms of working with the students and prospective students of engineering universities is organizing intellectual competitions for expert speakers and students themselves, in which they all could communicate their ideas to young people in an interesting interactive format.

2 Project Description Previous History. Goals and Objectives The Engineering Slam Project was conceived by the faculty members of the technological university three years ago. The teachers realized the existing vocational orientation problems of students and prospective students towards choosing the engineering educational programs and future professions. It became apparent that it was necessary to make additional efforts aimed at stimulating and maintaining the students’ interest in engineering professions and at developing motivation to further choosing an occupation. As is approved by psychologists, a person may become interested in a subject or phenomenon, provided that he or she has seen it with his or her own eyes or that this subject or phenomenon has been told about interestedly by the actual professionals or by the carriers of new knowledge and new ideas, authors and developers, or people who have succeeded in their areas. On the other hand, pedagogical science and practice necessitate searching for some new, original forms of presenting actual information and materials to young people. It should be noted that this aspiration coincides with the general social and public trends to intensify the efforts aimed at popularizing engineering professions. Today, additional programs are being adopted, aimed at popularizing technical sciences, engineering professions, and development of interest in technical creativity. The necessity of the above is also determined by the continuous growth of the needs of companies, enterprises, and businesses, for highly qualified employees for modern high-performance manufactures. Moreover, the interest in children’s technical creativity is being revived in the society and purposefully maintained by public authorities. Children’s technoparks are being established, and multiple contests are being organized [1–3]. Among them, the leading one is WorldSkills, a competition of young professionals, which picks up steam in all over the world. A group of faculty members of the technological university decided to choose the option of organizing the meetings of students with the successful representative of engineering businesses and with experts specializing in various industries that are

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actual for engineering development. However, they chose to make the meetings more informal and up-to-time to arouse interest in young people. Thus, the Engineering Slam (Science Slam) Project was conceived and is being implemented at the engineering university in order to awake students’ interest in engineering professions and in new trends in science, engineering, and applied areas. The key objectives of the project are: Developing additional commercial competencies, studying the best practices in commercializing the outcomes of intellectual activities, and involving school, college and university students in the process of scientific, research, engineering, and project activities in the context of economy digitalization and Industry 4.0. Implementation of these project goals and objectives is promoted by the interested public authorities and businesses, such as the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the largest expo center of the region. Another important goal of the project was to popularize sciences and scientific research. Engineering Slam has been developing as a new (for universities) format of developing in students engineering competencies and research skills and exchanging experiences and knowledge between the invited experts and the young people.

3 Project Implementation Stages Within the framework of the project implementation, a work team was created that was developing the specific mechanisms of implementing the project and establishing relationships to public authorities, on the one hand, and to the representatives of engineering businesses, on the other hand. Stage 1 – Planning At this stage, the exact idea was developed of how to conduct events aimed at popularizing engineering professions in the Engineering Slam (ES) format. The project work team defined the format of events aimed at popularizing the sciences, as well as the terms and times of the project implementation. The long-term prospects of the projects were also defined immediately, since the project could transform with the time, in terms of its specific forms, participants, and experts to be invited. The periodicity of organizing the project events was defined: At least twice a year (in fact, they started to be conducted more frequently with the time – up to 4 times a year). It was decided that ES would be held in December, late February/early March, and August in each year and related to the specialized international exhibitions and forums, such as TIAF, Avtomekhanika, Aerospace Technologies, Modern Materials and Equipment, etc. Stage 2 – Feasibility Methodical and legal grounding of the project was developed, such as documents to implement the project within the university and the industry-specific ministry of the region (Ministry of Industry and Trade). These methods had been finalized and improved for the subsequent three years.

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Stage 3. Organizational Developing the formats and scenarios of individual events. Upon discussing various scenario options proposed, it was decided to conduct the events in the format of “battles”, i.e., contests among the experts invited or the students. An important point is that a popular science communicator from another university was invited as the presenter. This person is well known in the city and beyond and participates in the project with pleasure as both the presenter and the author of popular books on science (chemistry) and its prospects in the contemporary world. Organizers used additional forms of heightening the young audience’s interest and enhancing the attractiveness of the ES sessions, such as question-answer sessions; measuring the applause with a noise meter; and awarding for the best question to the speaker. Moreover, to make it even more attractive for the youth, the organizers use the forms, such as modern space design and decorating locations at the hall. These are photo zones, food court zones, zones where participants are registered and ES-branded materials are distributed to the participants, etc. funds are allocated for these purposes from the budgets of the specialized university programs aimed at the vocational orientation of students. Stage 4. Project Implementation Finally, the work team has developed the existing format of holding the Engineering Slam. It represents sessions with experts, in the course of which informal communication takes place, as well as direct dialogs, discussions, and answers to questions. The speakers present their developments and their businesses. Their presentations must be comprehensible, student-friendly, eloquent, convincing, and vivid. Themes Addressed by Speakers Speakers invited to participate in the ES project should qualify for the following criteria: (a) They must be successful in their areas of applied sciences and/or engineering businesses and have achieved considerable scientific and commercial (for business people) results; (b) Themes addressed by the speakers must be relevant to the most actual areas and trends in science and engineering; and (c) Speakers must have a good experience in public speaking, as well as be inclined to and wish to enlighten young people. Here are some themes addressed by the speakers of the ES last year: Prospects of Self-Driving Cars; Innovative Medical Products. Fact or Fiction?; Digital Twins Near Us; Gasoline Quality Express Analysis (A Proprietary Technology); Advanced Fuel for Advanced Cars; How to Sell Your Idea?; and much more. The themes addressed may also relate to the ethical or philosophical aspects of technical progress, such as in the talk titled: Do Robots Have a Moral? There can also be communicative questions or “wavelengthmanship”, such as: You Decided to Become a Science Communicator? What Should You Do to Ensure Your Failure?

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Presentation Forms of Ideas The project suggests two basic forms of presenting the ideas. The first one is the presentations of student speakers. The second one is the presentations of invited speakers. The latter ones are usually well-known researchers from different countries, as well as engineers owning their businesses or successful business people who have achieved commercial success in engineering. During a year, several sessions are organized, involving at least five speakers. For the first battle, reports and presentations were prepared by the students of various universities from different cities and towns of Russia. They presented their works for the audience and then answered their questions. Upon completion of that battle, the information obtained was analyzed, and it was decided to change the format of the events and to invite speakers from their professional areas. The very next battle confirmed that the choice had been made correctly: The number of interested participants and visitors from among school, college and university students has increased from 2016 through 2018. The results of measuring the number of the event participants provide evidence of the growing interest in the project (the results are shown in the Table 1 below). The number of speakers who have agreed to participate in the project has also increased.

Table 1. Numbers of the ES project participants. Year Number of participants, i.e., school, college and university students Number of speakers from other cities or countries

2016 2017 2017 2018 2018 (December) (March) (December) (August) (December) 70 85 130 157 327

2

2

2

4

3

The project boundaries are expanded continuously. In the first year, the students of only one faculty were involved in the project. Today, the students of many faculties, as well as school and college students of the city and region, are invited to participate. Over the three years of the project implementation, the organizers have noted the increased interest taken in it by the students.

4 Effects of the Project Implementation Engineering Slam allows demonstrating to young people all the facets of scientific and engineering activities in the context of the digitalization of economy and industry 4.0, push the boundaries of research and project-related thought in engineering areas, and involve school, college and university students into the process of technology entrepreneurship and in commercializing the results obtained.

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The project participants demonstrate good motivation and high performance in their studies, easily define the topics of their research and projects, and participate in scientific conferences and competitions. As a rule, those involved in the project become the center of scientific activity at their faculty.

References 1. Kaybiyaynen, A., Nasonkin, V., Bondarenko, D., Nazarov, A., Tkach, G.: Networking between engineering university and enterprises in future students training. In: Teaching and Learning in a Digital World, ICL 2018 – 21st International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Kos Island, Greece, 25–28 September 2018, pp. 1299–1310. http:// icl-onference.org/proceedings/ICL2018_proceedings.zip 2. Kaybiyaynen, D.-A., Kaybiyaynen, A.: University as a center of project-based learning of school students. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL 2015), pp. 1018–1021 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1109/icl.2015.7318168 3. Ivanov, V.G., Poholkov, Y.P., Kaybiyaynen, A.A., Ziyandinova, Y.N.: Ways of development of engineering education for the global community. Vysshee obrazovanie v Rossii (High. Educ. Russia) (3), 67–79 (2015). (in Russian) 4. Kadeeva, Z., Zinurova, R.: The formation of innovative behavior values in new type high schools - national research universities. Paper Presented at 2017 ASEE International Forum, Columbus, Ohio, June 2017. https://peer.asee.org/29304

Accessible Portal for School-Age Blind, as a Tool to Improve Social Skills Betty Armijo-Moreta1, Javier Sánchez-Guerrero2(&), Víctor Hugo Guachimbosa1, and Willyams Castro-Davila2 1

Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador [email protected], [email protected] 2 Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y de la Educación, Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador {jsanchez,williamsrcastrod}@uta.edu.ec

Abstract. This paper presents the process of developing an Accessible Portal for school students with partial or total blindness, giving an opportunity to have as support a site where they will find resources of all kinds, to help improve their social skills and also serve to strengthen and increase in a playful way the knowledge they develop in school. An observation card was used which was validated and applied with the support of the teacher of blind children, after which the web portal was developed with patterns of accessibility which allows the blind user through the use of the application NVDA, which converts objects accessible to voice, so that they can be understood by users. After each of the students could use the accessible portal for a while, the observation card was applied again and statistically there was an improvement process in their knowledge and their ability to socialize with their peers and people close to them. Finally, the conclusions, limitations and future work of the research are described. Keywords: Blind


Accessible portal
Social skills
Resources
Website

1 Introduction The ideal world, is thought and conceived only or in a great part for complete people, that is to say, without difficulties or that they do not have different capacities as for the development of their senses, as it can be people who have difficulties in the sight, hearing, mobility, people who cannot use by their own means to touch or to take objects. It is for this reason that one of the most extensive problems in the whole world without being solved in a definitive way, is that of providing instruments, products or elements for people who have a special or different capacity. According to [1] worldwide there are approximately 285 million people with visual impairment, of whom 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. Visual disability consists of the affectation, to a greater or lesser degree, or in the lack of vision. In itself, it does not constitute a disease; on the contrary, it is the consequence of a varied type of disease [2].

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Approximately 90% of young students with visual impairment in developing countries are deprived of education. Lack of infrastructure, accessible health care, development of inappropriate and affordable school materials, and unqualified teachers mean that students with visual impairment cannot access education [3]. All over the world, there are students with visual impairment who lack the tools that help overcome the barriers produced by visual impairment, since the use of ICTs allows these barriers to be eliminated, bearing in mind that these tools are spaces that can facilitate the development of social skills, allowing them to develop behaviors and actions that improve learning, being the basis for surviving in the information society in a healthy manner, which in the future can be carried out in the workplace. The abilities that a child has to relate will improve his self-esteem since he will be able to develop easily in his environment, he will not isolate himself for fear of rejection but rather he will be sociable and very communicative [4]. Currently, Ecuador has policies that help to identify persons with disabilities as a priority attention group, with a process of progressive positioning of the issue of visual disability at the legal, technical and administrative levels. As a result, it has been possible to coordinate the interest of the authorities at the level of the presidency, the National Assembly, the Ombudsman’s Office and other high-ranking government agencies on this issue. For [5] all persons who have a disability because they have the same needs as others, in terms of obtaining optimal opportunities for health and confidence that allow them to develop their possibilities to the maximum, deserve the same opportunities. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) in the city Latacunga there are 2741 people with visual impairment, 15 of them are in different educational institutions in the city Latacunga, in these institutions there are students who have difficulty in developing social skills, such as empathy, assertiveness, attachment, communication, these skills were not developed from a very early age. All these factors and the lack of technological materials make it difficult for visually impaired children to learn and develop the different social skills they should possess. The research suggests that through the use of ICTs students with visual impairment can develop social skills. The objective of this research work is to determine how the application of ICTs and a web portal help the development of social skills in people with visual impairment [6]. In the institution, object of study there was no accessible tool to help the blind and therefore the research led to propose an alternative solution through a web portal with accessibility.

2 State of the Art As a matter of principle, those who are considering the advantages of making use of ICTs in the educational process, others take this aggregation of technologies for granted and launch a debate on how this incorporation should be and what elements it affects. If we add to all this the evolution of ICTs, with the diversification of existing tools and therefore the updating of knowledge that this entails, we are faced with a permanent search for solutions in the field of education and social development [6].

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For [7] the use of ICTs, the same tools that provoke changes in the teaching and learning process and that, little by little, have come to break traditional teaching schemes in the classroom, constitute the support for educational processes and at the same time give support to people who have physical difficulties such as blind people. ICT’s are the most important resource for the blind to access information and perform tasks, computer technology is essential for these people to be included in the information society and the professional world, getting freedom for the development of their occupations [8]. Education has evolved mainly from the space/time in which it develops to its teaching methods; therefore, it can be indicated that the ideal is that in a world as globalized as today, the true purpose of education, which is to train people for life, should not be lost [6]. In the field of education, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have become very useful tools. Therefore, it is important that teachers, as mediators and guides in the teaching and learning process of their students, train themselves and take as a pillar of their work paradigms that allow participation and logical reasoning [9]. Many of the tools are found on the Internet, in such a way that using them is undoubtedly a support in daily activities for everyone, and within these applications we have those of more frequent use such as social networks. A social network is an organized group of people formed by two types of elements: human beings and connections between them [10]. Being social networks the means that allows human interaction in the production, storage, distribution, transfer produced by man and the interest in sharing data either of any kind and through any medium in electronic form in a given social context. A. Accessibility in web portals It is a necessary feature of products that can be used, visited or accessed by all people to make use of web services and content, especially by those who have some kind of disability [11]. In the research we worked with students who are blind at different levels, but most are blind, so all applications will take into account tools that provide the opportunity to openly access the use of websites in a manner accessible to blind people. The World Wide Web Consortium, W3C is an international entity that deploys standards to certify the long-term growth of the Web. One of the initiatives initiated by W3C to improve access to the Web for people with disabilities was the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative). In 1999 the WCAG 1.0 standards were developed, which was the first accessible web design guide for programmers. In 2008, a second version of the WCAG 2.0 was defined. WCAG 2.0 is organized in levels of analysis [12]. There are a great variety of norms and standards for the design of web pages which are aimed at having an adequate level of accessibility. The working group Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in 1999 created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was the developer of the so-called: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG), in 2008 was updated to version WCAG 2.0 [13], the ISO/IEC standard that guides the design of highly accessible web pages [14]. On the other hand [15] mention that WCAG 2.0 is predestined for a great variety of web developers, developers of tools oriented to people who need to be guided in order

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to guarantee web accessibility [16], should be considered at the beginning, during the design, development of applications and web pages. Whether WCAG 2.0 is determined by its fundamental principles: perceptible, operable, understandable and robust. For [17] according to these verification points there are conformity levels: “A” all verification points 1 are satisfied; “AA” all verification points 1 and 2 are satisfied, “AAA”, all verification points 1, 2, 3 are satisfied and are used to reference the level of accessibility that a page or website has. On the other hand, it is necessary to have a software that through the accessibility that the web sites already have, considering the accessibility factors, can translate to audio, everything that is explained in a visual way, be it text, images, videos or other resources that have been used in the development of the web site. These programs can be: Jaws: It is a screen reader software that works with Microsoft Windows and makes computers accessible to visually impaired people by converting the content of the screen into sound so you can access to navigate without needing to see [18]. There is also Free Software NVDA NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free screen reader and open source for the Microsoft Windows Operating System. By providing feedback through synthetic voice and Braille, it enables blind or visually impaired people to access computers running Windows at a cost no greater than that of a sighted person. In this work we consider the development of social skills in students who are blind, with the aim that in addition to learning can generate socialization skills with others and in different ways such as the use of technological platforms. They are skills or abilities that allow students to interact with their peers and environment in a friendly social way, these skills can be assimilated and can range from the simplest to the most complex as: greet smiling, do favors, express feelings defend their rights [19].

3 Methodology To develop the present work we will use the mixed approach, because [20] they express: The use of the designs of mixed method constitute, day by day, in an excellent alternative to approach topics of investigation in the educational field. In addition, in the present research work he carried out an exploratory study, in which direct contact was maintained between the researcher and the object of study in order to provide a concrete solution for students and teachers. We worked with the total population of the Specialized Unit of Cotopaxi of the canton Latacunga in Ecuador, for being of special character that has only education for blind, the number is 15 subjects. Mainly an observation card was used which was validated through the statistical method of Cronbach’s Alpha, which the teacher in charge was able to apply to the children as she observed their skills in the handling of digital tools such as a desktop or laptop computer. This allowed a pre and post test to verify progress in the study, once a proposed solution was applied.

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This led to the following results, show Table 1: Table 1. Observation parameters Item to observe

Satisfactory Moderately satisfactory

Uses an electronic device to communicate (cellular, Tablet, 5 Laptop) Request help identifying a device 4 You need to be supported so that you can communicate 4 Can be independently located temporarily on any day 11 When you use the computer, how do you do it? 8 Can be located or manipulated on websites 5 When operating a computer, locate the keyboard properly 5 Can manipulate resources presented on a computer 5 Motivationally, the student is interested in the use of a 13 technological medium The student with visual difficulty is interested in 11 manipulating technological devices

Unsatisfactory

4

6

6 8 3 3 7 4 3 2

5 3 1 4 3 6 7 0

4

0

This instrument was validated in its reliability through the Cronbach Alpha, Table 2, giving the following value: Table 2. Alpha de Cronbach Reliability statistics Cronbach’s Alpha Cronbach alpha based on standardized elements N of elements 0,714 0,648 10

As a general criterion, [21] suggest that the Cronbach alpha coefficient > .7 is good, the consistency value that is considered adequate is 0.7 or more. Validation The reliability level of the observation card that was elaborated for the students was applied to the totality of 15 students, resulting in the Cronbach alpha coefficient = 0.714, this indicates that the reliability level is good, and that the internal consistency of the analyzed items is validated. In this way, we continued with the development of a website that has accessibility features and can provide a tool in which blind students can rely on to improve their social skills and also serve as academic reinforcement, where you will find videos, fables, stories, notes of interest, among other resources. The development of the web portal was carried out using the ADDIE model, in which this web site is accessible through the design of patterns that give the

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opportunity and facility to access the site without major problem and have access to information independently. ADDIE consists of the phases: Analysis: In which it was possible to gather information on the needs of the blind in terms of the resources they would like to have as support. Design: The following model was used in the design of the portal:

Fig. 1. Website construction steps

This will create the first page that will serve as a pattern to continue with the creation of the others (Figs. 1, 2 and 3).

Fig. 2. Website design

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Development: The site was developed using HTML, CSS and Javascript in a NotePad++ environment. Implementation: Once it is ready, it is managed in the site http://seguimientogra duados.uta.edu.ec/discapacidades/uno/webaccesible/. Evaluation: Normally the accessibility of a site is done through accessibility evaluation tools, for this Examinator was used.

Fig. 3. WebSite developed

4 Results Once the blind students were able to use the web portal in order to manage the resources presented there and whose intention was to improve their social skills to better develop with their peers and also strengthen the knowledge they are developing in classrooms, it was necessary to make a new observation to establish parameters of progress or not, in their learning and management of technological resources. It is in this way that a comparative table is presented of the results of a pre and post test with the data of the observation card applied by the teacher (Table 3).

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Table 3. Pre test and post test Pre-test and post test Item Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed # Item to be observed #

Pre value Post value 1 5 10 2 4 1 3 4 2 4 11 15 5 8 14 6 5 10 7 5 12 8 5 12 9 13 15 10 11 15

With these data, a new variable called Difference between post value minus pre value was first calculated through the use of SPSS statistical software. After which the mean standard deviation and variance of these three variables is calculated (Table 4). Table 4. Data normality Statistics N Medium Standard deviation Variance

Valid Lost

PreTest

PostTest

Difference

10 0 7,10 3,381

10 0 10,60 5,168

10 0 3,5000 3,50397

11,433

26,711

12,278

Normality is then calculated to apply the Wilcoxon or T-Student statistic depending on the bilateral asymptotic p-value (Table 5). As the value of p 0.061 is less than 0.5, it is checked that there is normality in the data and therefore T-Student is applied. In order to proceed to use the T-Student, two hypotheses based on the use of the accessible website are required to verify whether it affects the development of social skills of the students. Ho: The use of an accessible website allows blind students to develop social skills. H1: The use of an accessible website does not allow blind students to develop social skills (Table 6).

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Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for a sample PreTest PostTest Difference N Normal parameters a, b mean

7,10 Standard deviation 3,381 Maximum extreme differences absolute ,333 Positive ,333 Negative −,180 Test statistic Sig. asymptotic (bilateral) a. The test distribution is normal. b. It is calculated from data. c. Correction of Lilliefors significance.

10 10,60 5,168 ,254 ,197 −,254 ,254 ,067c

10 3,5000 3,50397 ,257 ,159 −,257 ,257 ,061c

Table 6. Pre test y post test, T-Student Prueba de muestras emparejadas Diferencias emparejadas Media Desviación Media de estándar error estándar Par 1 PostTest- 3,500 3,504 PreTest

1,108

t gl Sig. (bilateral) 95% de intervalo de confianza de la diferencia Inferior Superior ,993 6,007 3,159 9 ,012

Being the p value, Bilateral Sig a value of 0.012 a very low value is discarded the H1 and keeps the Ho indicating that: Ho: The use of an accessible website allows blind students to develop social skills.

5 Conclusions It is considered fundamental the use of information and communication technologies in students with visual impairment, which will allow a change and the fact of assuming new challenges that place him in front of the opportunity to transform their educational systems. In the motivational part it could be observed that the students have a good response to the handling of technological devices as well as to the use of web pages and other programs that allow them to socialize and communicate efficiently with their peers. It was verified that the majority of students are able to use a laptop computer properly, however there is a considerable number of people who do not master the use of the keyboard. Through the data obtained and by means of statistical methods, it was possible to evidence a certain process of improvement in the social skills of the students as well as

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a proper handling of digital media that improves their quality of life and their ability to interact with their peers whether they are blind or not. As future work is emerging a new research that allows to adapt to the site more resources such as a voice chat, which facilitates synchronous communication of blind users.

References 1. OMS: Reporte anual (2016) 2. Castejón, J.L.: Unas bases psicológicas de la Educación Especial. Editorial Club Universitario, Alicante (2007) 3. UNESCO: Educación de niños y jovenes con discapacidades. In: Pricipios y práctica, pp. 1– 60 (2010) 4. Troncoso, G.: Comunicación interpersonal, Programa de Entrenamiento de habildades sociales, es estudiantes universitarios. Revista Psicología y Salud 120–135 (2014) 5. Flores, D., Nuñez, C.: Capacitación Profesional Docente: Realidades de la Educación Inclusiva. Cuaderno De Pedagogía Universitaria, pp. 15–25 (2017) 6. Lujan, S.: Accesibilidad web (2015). [En línea]. http://accesibilidadweb.dlsi.ua.es. Último acceso 10 Mayo 2019 7. García, M.G.: Las TIC en los entornos educativos. Edmetic 4, 3–6 (2015) 8. Aranega, S., Domenech, J.: La educación primaria: retos propuesta y dilema (2001) 9. Araza, C.S.: El método didáctico a través de las Tic. Nau Llibres (2011) 10. Marín-Díaz, V.: Investigación, educación y TIC. Edmetic 3, 1–2 (2014) 11. Piñeiro, T., Sanchez, C.C.: Ciberactivismo y redes sociales. El uso de facebook por uno de los colectivos. Netw. Belong. Netw. Belong. 165–180 (2012) 12. García Perez, M., Ortega Sanchez, I.: Atención a la e-accesibilidad y usabilidad universal en el diseño formativo. Pixel Bit, Revista de Medios y Educación 89–99 (2010) 13. Jaume Mayol, J., Fontanet Nadal, G., Bibiloni Coll, A.: Análisis y procedimiento de mejora de la accesibilidad web. RISTI - Revista Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Información 61–73 (2011) 14. Romen, D.: Validando las versiones WCAG 1.0 Y 1.2 atraves de pruebas de usabilidad con usuarios discapacitados. Univ. Access Inf. Soc. 11, 375–385 (2012) 15. Acosta, P., Lujan, S.: Analisis de la accesibilidad de los sitios web de las universidades ecuatorianas de excelencia. Enfoque UTE 8, 46–51 (2017) 16. de Oleo Moreta, C., Rodriguez, L.: Pautas, metodos y herramientas de evaluación de accesibilidad web. Ventana Informática 99–115 (2015) 17. Garrido, A., Firmenich, S., Rossi, G., Grigera, J., Medina-Medina, N., Harari, I.: Accesibilidad web personalizada mediante client-side refactoring. ARR IEEE Internet Comput. 17, 58–66 (2013) 18. Lopez, J., Moreira, J., Alava, N.: Metodología para valorar y clasificar herramientas de evaluación de accesibilidad web. E-Ciencias de la información 1649–4142 (2017) 19. Morales, J.I.P., Sáez, M.P., Carrillo, O.B.G., Castellanos Oñate, C.M., Pérez, N.F.A., García, M.A.: Talleres para el desarrollo de habilidades investigativas desde la asignatura Metodología de la Investigación. Edumecentro (2018) 20. Pereira Pérez, Z.: Los diseños de método mixto en la investigación en educación: Una experiencia concreta. Revista Electrónica Educare XV(1), 15–29 (2011) 21. George, D., Mallery, P.: SPSS for Windows Step by Step: A Simple Guide and Reference. Allyn & Bacon, Boston (2003)

Transnational Learning, Teaching, Training Activities for B-CAPP Project Smart Use of ICT and e-Business for Young Start-Up Entrepreneurs Rafik Absi1(&), Ikram El Abbassi1, Moumen Darcherif1, Bisera Karanovic2, Gordana Nikolic2, Anna Stamouli3, Fabian Gomez4, and Mattheos Kakaris5 1

ECAM-EPMI Graduate School of General Engineering, Cergy-Pontoise, France {r.absi,i.elabbassi}@ecam-epmi.com, [email protected] 2 PAR University College, Rijeka, Croatia {bisera.karanovic,gordana.nikolic}@par.hr 3 CCS Crystal Clear Soft, Athens, Greece [email protected] 4 FYG Consultors, Valencia, Spain [email protected] 5 CIVIC Computing, Edinburgh, UK [email protected]

Abstract. B-CAPP is a project co-funded by the ERASMUS + European Programme, aiming in helping young entrepreneurs to improve their skills and knowledge towards the smart use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and e-Business for reducing operating costs and generating revenues in order to successfully run their own start-up companies. The B-CAPP partnership is designing, developing, testing, implementing and disseminating an innovative training framework. Modular training course along with online training materials facilitated by two innovative tools namely the Financial Strategy Genie (or Genie) and the Skills Retention Service (SRS) with a Learning Motivation Environment (LME). The Joint Staff Training Event (Train the trainers workshop) gives partners the opportunity to assess the project outputs through a peer-learning and testing process. The development of the proposed training framework was based on the adoption of a user-centered approach. The Joint Staff Training Event (Train the trainers workshop) was very useful especially at a particular moment, i.e. after Intellectual Outputs (IOs) and before multiplier events/pilots. This workshop increased the motivation of the trainers, gave weight to their practical experiences and provided the necessary cross-links between theory and practice. Keywords: ICT
e-Business
Entrepreneurs
Start-up companies Peer-learning
User-centered approach
Hands-on work

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1 Introduction Start-up companies are an essential part of European Commission as one of the main priorities for the attainment of a sustainable and durable European economic growth. In particular they will have a leading role in the European Digital single market as underlined in the “Start-ups and the Digital Single Market final report” (European Commission Report by Nesta, Tech.eu and The Lisbon Council, 2015 [1]). The B-CAPP project concerns a complete training program for financial planning/management of start-ups complemented by smart use of ICT for reduction of operating costs and cross border business activity leading to increase in competitiveness [2]. There were initiatives in the past for starting companies. Between 2008 and 2013, the average time for starting a business was cut from 9 days to 4 days and the cost fell from €463 to €315 [3]. However, this was too few to help companies stay afloat. It is easier now to start a company in Europe, but it is still difficult to gain access to a larger customer base across Europe and scale up to become a global winner [4]. Start-ups, mainly those after the first year of operation, have it somewhat easy at the beginning while later they find themselves struggling with day to day cash flow management, operating costs, while the competition for the same customers within the market is increasingly aggravating their situation. Countless references on barriers for start-ups can be found with a simple Google search. However, this is not applicable when it comes to proven hands-on solutions, since just theories, general training and links to financing instruments are only available. The B-CAPP Project does not aspire to provide yet another temporary solution that will soon become obsolete, but is looking into the provision of more in-depth information and practical training that will enhance not only the knowledge but also the skills required for successful and efficient financial management within a global market. Eight institutions from seven European countries are involved in B-CAPP project namely ECAM-EPMI Graduate School of General Engineering (France), which is the coordinator of the project, PAR University College (Croatia), Crystal Clear Soft - CCS (Greece), Eurocrea Merchant SRL – EM (Italy), NERDA North-East Regional Development Agency (Romania), FyG Consultores and FGUGR Grenada (Spain) and CIVIC Computing (United Kingdom). The presence of a transnational and transsectoral partnership is essential to gather and join different and cutting edge assessment and evaluation practices, models, techniques, methodologies and approaches experienced in participating partners countries, in order to get a complete, state-of-the art and useful training course with a wide European value, to be applied and adapted to any country specificities. The identification of winning practices in terms of financial management of start-ups and smart use of ICT and their transformation to personalized strategies for start-ups also requires a transnational consortium that comprises partners representing different sectors and having different experiences and expertise. B-CAPP aims to empower young entrepreneurs with the financial management skills and knowledge required in order to help them run and manage their businesses successfully and effectively. As lack of financial knowledge on managing a business is considered to be one of the main reasons of business failure [5], this program is addressing this gap so that it can contribute to reducing the rate of entrepreneurial failures. This however is only one aspect of overall financial management. It needs to

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be complemented by smart use of ICT and not addressed in isolation [6, 7]. The project complements financial management with the adoption of supporting ICT tools and processes (e.g. cash flow tools, eProcurement, eInvoicing, virtual marketplaces and eCommerce strategies) as we have seen in the last years that more digital small and medium enterprises (SMEs) incurred a lesser decrease in turn over (reasons are more cross border activity through eCommerce, reduction in operating costs passed to customers making them more competitive, etc.). The need for a more efficient use of ICT to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of enterprises and entire sectors has been fully recognized by Member States and the Commission and features at the top of the political agenda. B-CAPP direct beneficiaries are: Entrepreneurs who lack knowledge on how to manage the financial aspect of their businesses including smart use of ICT, Females and males, Between 19 and 35 years old. Beneficiaries will have the possibility to improve their skills and knowledge about issues concerning financial management (e.g. Entrepreneurial Finance, Cash flow management & Basic accounting concepts, etc.) and smart use of ICT/eBusiness for reducing operating costs and generating revenues (e.g. Cash flow automation tools, eTendering, eCommerce, etc.). The objective is not to look into financial management concepts in a vacuum, but address them in direct relation to the adoption of proven ICT practices and tools as smarter use of ICT drives revenues and reduces operating costs. Therefore, sustainable financial management cannot be isolated from ICT use. The paper is structured in the following way: Sect. 1 briefly introduces the project and its context. Section 2 provides the theoretical framework and background, while Sect. 3 introduces the innovations and solutions of the project and delivers the main outcomes, while. Section 4 concludes.

2 Theoretical Framework and Background The state of the art on competence development in today’s corporate environment is harnessing the benefits of technology in improving both the learning and the teaching process. However, the introduction of ICT– ranging from simple spreadsheets to the all-powerful AI and robotics tools – is not the only impetus behind the wave of disruption in educating the workforce. Other megatrends are also interfering in the process, namely sharing and collaboration, experience personalization, and industry convergence [8]. In line with these megatrends are several of the activities undertaken as part of the B-CAPP project which included transnational Learning, Teaching, Training Activities (LTTA). The Joint Staff Training Event (Train the trainers workshop) was a good opportunity to assess the project outputs through a peer-learning and testing process. While literature on peer-assisted learning is bountiful, the dominant paradigm in adult learning and professional development cannot be extricated from Lombardo & Eichinger’s work, according to which most learning occurs informally [9–12]. More specifically, about 70% of the job is learned from challenging tasks on the job, 20% from peer learning, while the remaining 10% is from formal learning. This 70:20:10 reference model is a valuable reminder that most learning occurs in the workplace; put together, experiential (on-the-job activities such as challenges, real-time support, information sources and specific situation) and social (learning-through others

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activities such as peer-to-peer sharing and collaboration, cooperation, feedback, coaching, and mentoring) activities constitute about 90% of all learning practices in the organization [13, 14]. This surprisingly high proportion of informal learning (experiential and situational combined) stands in stark contrast to the remaining 10% in formal methods which include conventional training and development courses and programs, learning modules as well as self-directed learning and reading. Other studies have corroborated these findings throughout the years, with most of them revolving around 70% as the amount of informal learning that was found to happen in the workplace [15–18]. In the words of Rabin, informal learning refers to “spontaneous, unstructured, learner-driven experiences … where context forms a critical part of learning” [19]. In conjunction with the above, testing is an integral element of the B-CAPP project, as it is announced upfront and is performed regularly, thus inducing a beneficial forward testing effect [20]. The development of the proposed training framework in B-CAPP was based on the adoption of a user-centered approach [21, 22]. In such cases, the individual assumes responsibility for determining learning goals, monitoring progress toward meeting them, adjusting or adapting approaches as warranted, and determining when individual goals have been adequately addressed [23]. Adding a digital layer to this approach, when the individual learner uses the world wide web as a learning platform, can bring both efficiency and complexity to the mix to create a smart learning environment which is personalized, adaptable, and able to track and analyze the data generated by the user. Most importantly, the digital dimension provides self-pacing, flexibility, ease of access and cost effectiveness which are in such high demand among time-constrained entrepreneurs. Such technology-enhanced professional learning addresses the need for continuous improvement in the workplace through processes, practices, and tools [24]. Moreover, for corporate organizations, digital technologies enable the implementation of customized learning environments even on small scale [25]. The final validation of the training program includes cycles of training activities and hands-on work [26]. Participants were engaged in a mix of activities, where all of them both deliver and receive training. Such collaborative approach, enhanced by technology and facilitated by continuous interaction resulted in calibration of the intellectual outputs and their subsequent localization to reflect each country’s specific needs [27].

3 Innovations and Solutions of the Project The project has three major innovations: (1) The 1st one is the FCT course and is relative to the subject of financial management directly linked to smart use of ICT for the target group of start-up entrepreneurs. There are far too many projects addressing start-ups and the competences and skills needed for entrepreneurship. However, there is a surprising lack of initiatives targeting the financial management, sales and business development of a start-ups based on their specific characteristics and ICT potential

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to be utilized. An example of how the issue is ignored in this dimension is e-commerce. Even though this environment is very positive and constantly improving with help from the EC [28], many businesses still don’t have significant revenue from cross-border business activity. Therefore, why isolate financial management from business development activities which can generate revenues at short time, without necessitating a substantial investment, such as the adoption of e-commerce practices for boosting cross-border sales? This is where B-CAPP plans to operate. (2) The 2nd innovation is the development of a training program bringing new types of organization and knowledge about financial management and eBusiness technologies and trends, concentrated on transforming ICT trends into applicable tools for start-ups to change current practices. The approach to training is based on the situation of a start-up (financial competence, educational background, geographical location, existing infrastructure, type of start-up, etc.). After completion of the training, start-ups are expected to be able to adopt proven practices and tools by successfully implementing the financial strategy designed specifically for them. The consideration of the start-ups’ specific characteristics through personalization is also where the project differentiates from other offerings [it extends the ideas of Search Engine College & DMA Education]. Personalization will be embedded in the training methodology and guide the design of the training content. An additional innovation is the Financial Strategy Genie tool which will be situated at the core of the training system. The Genie will utilize start-up specific data sets (existing financial practices, infrastructure, ICT competencies, current practices, etc.) to propose the appropriate strategy. Using the Genie, start-ups will have a personalized training plan for implementing the proposed strategy. The “Financial Strategy Genie” will develop personalized training pathways by initially testing the current knowledge and awareness of start-ups about core financial management concepts and ICT processes and tools and then providing personalized training plans composed of phases (phased approach). The Genie is intended to work as a truly interactive system, favoring motivation and curiosity of users, avoiding the approach of a traditional training delivery. A phased approach can be more motivating for a start-up especially since it will be possible to choose the actions to implement from the personalized strategy. (3) The full training package provided by B-CAPP is completed with the provision of the Skills Retention Service functionality that will be integrated into a customdeveloped Learning Motivation Environment (LME) which will facilitate skills retention. This functionality concerns the FCT content re-purposing following micro-learning principles together with digital resources to support skills retention in an engaging environment that is designed to motivate learners to achieve goals and share experience [29, 30]. It achieves this by acting on three senses, the ones of purpose, autonomy and mastery, as depicted in Fig. 1. During the modeling of the re-purposed content inside the LME, motivational workflows will be defined to engage the learners in the learning process while gamification mechanics will be used to deliver a lasting learning experience. The process involves instructional

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Fig. 1. The three dimensions of the B-CAPP Learning Motivation Environment (LME)

designers writing content, and reviewing course materials with content authors. Ultimately, the B-CAPP LME will generate revenues, especially since it will be complemented by a skills and achievements recognition framework which will be based on the Open Badges specification1. The skills retention service will also serve as an assessment tool for retaining any certification awarded through the B-CAPP FCT course. Therefore, the skills retention service will complement the B-CAPP offering and demonstrate its sustainability beyond the lifetime of the project. Project methodology, implementation, outcomes and validation. 3.1

Project Methodology

The rationale for partner involvement is to combine general participation with specific expertise and sectoral experience thus avoiding partner performance based on individual and scattered achievements and promoting strong mutuality. Each partner is assigned work tasks, based on their expertise, competences and experience and wider networking. The distribution of tasks is according to partner expertise and explicitly depicted in the description of the Intellectual Outputs, while the activities for implementing the IOs show clear collaboration paths among partners. Several steps were achieved during the project in order to support the implementation of the core results registered as Intellectual Outputs: – Identification of current start-up approaches to financial management and smart use of ICT with high growth and cost reduction potential;

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– Comparative analysis from a critical viewpoint of current approaches by start-ups from the partner countries and approaches of start-ups from countries which top the charts in terms of financial viability of start-ups; – Design of a training methodology for start-ups and definition of wining ICTenabled financial strategies for sound financial management and adoption of ICT processes and tools that will lead to an improved balanced sheet for start-ups and thus in preservation of current job numbers and growth; – Identification and description of concrete actions for implementation of the elaborated strategies; – Creation of content to support the implementation of the actions materializing each strategy (“Action Cards”); – SCORM2 Learning Objects possible to use with all major LMS tools of today (e.g. Totara, Docebo, etc.). – Elaboration of a procedure to guide entrepreneurs in their daily on-the-job activities in relation to strategies facilitating sustainable financial management capitalizing also on smart ICT use – Development of a set of competences and learning outcomes in line with European quality standards; – Use of ECVET principles for formulating learning outcomes, design of units, templates for the memorandum of understanding (MoU) and the learning agreement (LA) for the “Financial Sustainability Manager” job qualification. 3.2

Main Outcomes

The project has the following intellectual outputs: • A modular training Financial Check Training (FCT) course for instructor-led (classroom’based) and remote e-Learning but also skills retention functionality • A Financial Strategy Genie facilitating personalized hands-on training on the adoption of proven practices for financial management and adoption of ICT processes and tools • Learning Motivation Environment: A skills retention service facilitated by a novel learning environment (B-CAPP LME) complementing the B-CAPP access to quality VET training on hands-on financial management and the uptake of ICT by start-ups • A set of competences and learning outcomes for the ECVET profile of the Financial Sustainability Manager • B-CAPP Academy as a first step for sustaining the training program past the funding period. It is a single point for networking and live support 3.3

Training Activities and Validation

The project included transnational Learning/Teaching/Training (LTTA) activities. The Joint Staff Training Event (Train the trainers workshop) provided partners the 2

Sharable Content Object Reference Model.

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opportunity to assess the project outputs through a peer-learning and testing process in order to ensure that the training course answers the identified priorities and that the trainers from all partner countries have properly assimilated the course and are ready to deliver it in the direct target group of the project within their countries. Additionally, the Joint Staff Training Event will improve the quality of transversal activities like dissemination and Multiplier Events. Upon return to their country, the staff from each partner organization participating in the Joint Staff Training Event will be able to use their deeper understanding of sustainable reporting training to enhance the content of their dissemination activities. Participants were engaged in a mix of activities, based on the principle of peer learning, where all partners both deliver and receive training. The Joint Staff Training Event (Train the trainers workshop) were timed appropriately, i.e. after Intellectual Outputs (IOs) and before multiplier events/pilots. This workshop increased the motivation of the trainers, gave weight to their practical experiences and provided the necessary cross-links between theory and practice. Based on the outcome of this workshop and to generate visibility for B-CAPP Academy the partners executed training sessions during the last months of the project. The training activities including pilots testing and multiplier events served as validation and dissemination instruments. The final validation of the training program included cycles of training activities and hands on work. The development of the proposed training framework was based on the adoption of a user-centered approach. The training sessions were set up in the delivery environment: Learning Motivation Environment including the Skills Retention Service. The training activities were targeting individuals from the group of direct beneficiaries with the intention of providing them with the necessary skills and competencies to be able to work as Financial Sustainability Managers in start-ups in most EU countries in accordance with the ECVET profile of the Financial Sustainability Manager which is based on the real needs of the very representative countries of the partnership. Multiplier events: Approximately 300 persons will be reached through multiplier events that will run during the last months of the project in all partner countries apart from the UK. The project foresees events (informational, promotional events and a conference) where many relevant stakeholders will be involved. Partners will organize such events locally, contacting and engaging stakeholders with strong capacity for dissemination in order to enforce efficacy and expected impact among large groups. It is expected that each of the 300 individuals participating in the foreseen events will have a multiplier effect on average of another 10/15 individuals generating a lot of awareness about the project and its objectives (between 3000 and 3500 reached). Piloting Activities: During the validation phase about 160 individuals will be exposed to the project outcomes, through instructor led classroom training (workshops) and through remote sessions. The total number of participants directly/indirectly involved/reached/benefited is estimated between 3860 and 4140.

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4 Conclusions B-CAPP is a project co-funded by the ERASMUS + European Programme, aiming to help young entrepreneurs to improve their skills and knowledge towards the smart use of ICT and e-Business for reducing operating costs and generating revenues in order to successfully run their own start-up companies. Eight organizations representing different sectors are involved in B-CAPP originated from seven European countries namely France, United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain and Croatia. An innovative training framework was designed, developed, tested, implemented and disseminated within the transsectoral B-CAPP partnership. Modular training course along with online training materials facilitated by two innovative tools namely the Financial Strategy Genie (or Genie) and the Skills Retention Service (SRS) with a Learning Motivation Environment (LME). The Joint Staff Training Event (Train the trainers workshop) provided partners the opportunity to assess the project outputs through a peer-learning and testing process in order to ensure that the training course answers the identified priorities and that the trainers from all partner countries have properly assimilated the course and are ready to deliver it in the direct target group of the project within their countries. The development of the proposed training framework was based on the adoption of a user-centered approach. The final validation of the training program included cycles of training activities and hands on work. Participants were engaged in a mix of activities, based on the principle of peer learning, where all partners both deliver and receive training. The Joint Staff Training Event (Train the trainers workshop) were timed appropriately, i.e. after Intellectual Outputs (IOs) and before multiplier events/pilots. This workshop increased the motivation of the trainers, gave weight to their practical experiences and provided the necessary cross-links between theory and practice. Acknowledgment. B-CAPP project was co-funded by the ERASMUS + Programme of the European Union (grant 2017-1-FR-01-KA202-037349). The authors/partners would like to thank the EU.

References 1. European Commission Report by Nesta, Tech.eu and The Lisbon Council. Startups and the Digital Single Market, FINAL REPORT, Workshop, the Startup Europe team of the European Commission, 2015. Contract number: 30-CE-0701644/00-40 (2015). https://ec. europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/startups-and-digital-single-market-workshop 2. B-CAPP website. https://bcapp.eu/ 3. European Commission, Start-up procedures, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. http://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/promoting-entrepreneurship/advice-opportunities/ start-up-procedures/ 4. European Commission, Speech by Vice-President Ansip at the Startup Europe Week launch event, 01 February 2016. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/ansip/ announcements/speech-vice-president-ansip-startup-europe-week-launch-event_en 5. Schaefer, P.: Why Small Businesses Fail: Top 7 Reasons for Startup Failure, Business Know-How® Privacy Statement, Last updated 22 April 2019

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6. Yadav, P., Mehta, P.: Importance of ICT in education. Int. J. Res. Soc. Sci. Humanit. 2(V), online (2014) 7. Kozma, R.B.: Comparative analysis of policies for ICT in education. In: International Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education, pp. 1083–1096. Springer US (2008) 8. Ernst & Young LLP, Eight megatrends driving digital disruption (2018). https://www.ey. com/Publication/vwLUAssets/ey-eight-megatrends-driving-disruption/%24File/ey-eightmegatrends-driving-disruption.pdf 9. Lombardo, M., Eichinger, R.: The Career Architect Development Planner, 1st edn. Lominger, Minneapolis (1996) 10. Raymond, A., Jacob, E., Jacob, D., Lyons, J.: Peer learning a pedagogical approach to enhance online learning: a qualitative exploration. Nurse Educ. Today 44, 165–169 (2016) 11. Duan, H., Zhang, G., Wang, S., Fan, Y.: Peer interaction and learning: cross-country diffusion of solar photovoltaic technology author links open overlay panel. J. Bus. Res. 89, 57–66 (2018) 12. Struk, I., Hellmann, R., Haeri, F., Calderon, R., Diaz, D., Senft, G.: Collaborative peer to peer learning for shoulder ultrasound and anatomy. J. Interprof. Educ. Pract. 14, 39–42 (2019) 13. Arets, J., Jennings, C., Heijnen, V.: 70:20:10 into action. 702010 Institute (2016). https:// 702010institute.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Primer-702010-into-action.pdf 14. Absi, R., Lavarde, M., Jeannin, L.: Towards more efficiency in tutorials: active teaching with modular classroom furniture and movie-making project. In: IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), pp. 774–778 (2018) 15. Tough, A.: The Adult’s Learning Projects: A Fresh Approach to Theory and Practice in Adult Learning. OISE, Toronto (1971) 16. Bruce, L., Aring, M., Brand, B.: Informal learning: the new frontier of employee & organizational development. Econ. Dev. Rev. 15(4), 12–18 (1998) 17. Vader, W.: Informal Learning. The National Research Network on New Approaches to Lifelong Learning (NALL) at OISE/UT, Canada (1998) 18. Dobbs, K.: Simple moments of learning. Training 35(1), 52–58 (2000) 19. Rabin, R.: Blended Learning for Leadership: The CCL Approach. White Paper (2014) 20. Yang, C., Potts, R., Shanks, D.: Enhancing learning and retrieval of new information: a review of the forward testing effect. NPJ Sci. Learn. 3(1) (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/ s41539-018-0024-y 21. Merlo, C., Abi Akle, A., Llaria, A., Terrasson, G., Villeneuve, E., Pilnière, V.: Proposal of a user-centred approach for CPS design: pillbox case study. IFAC-PapersOnLine 51(34), 196– 201 (2019) 22. Rico, M., Vila-Suero, D., Botezan, J., Gómez-Pérez, A.: Evaluating the impact of semantic technologies on bibliographic systems: a user-centred and comparative approach. J. Web Seman. (2019, in press). Corrected proof 23. Hannafin, M., Hannafin, K.: Cognition and student-centered, web-based learning: issues and implications for research and theory. In: Spector, M., Ifenthaler, D., Kinshuk, P., Sampson, D. (eds.) Learning and Instruction in the Digital Age: Making a Difference Through Cognitive Approaches, Technology-Facilitated Collaboration and Assessment, and Personalized Communications. Springer, New York (2010) 24. Littlejohn, A., Margaryan, A.: Technology-enhanced Professional Learning: Processes, Practices, and Tools. Routledge, Abingdon (2013) 25. Ifenthaler, D.: How We Learn at the Digital Workplace. In: Ifenthaler, D. (ed.) Digital Workplace Learning: Bridging Formal and Informal Learning with Digital Technologies. Springer, Cham (2018)

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Active Learning - Competency Development Strategy Olga Yurievna Khatsrinova1, Olga Seliverstova2, Julia Khatsrinova1, Ekaterina Tarasova1, and Svetlana Barabanova1(&) 1

Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 Federal Center for Educational Legislation, Moscow, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. The study is devoted to the development of legal competence in the study of the discipline “Jurisprudence”. To enhance the learning activities were used interactive forms of practical exercises. The use of business and roleplaying games, work with cases, the construction of Synquain (the word “synquain” comes from the French word “five” and means “a poem consisting of five lines”), the analysis of situations occurring in real professional activity leads not only to quality of the educational process, but also forms the legal consciousness of students. They increase their professional identity and actively participate in legal events.

1 Context The ongoing dynamic changes in the economic, political and social life of our society reinforce the need for active, legally competent thinkers of graduates who are able to independently put forward, plan and solve diverse social and professional tasks. Thus, one of the most important and urgent problems of the modern education system is the preparation of university students for solving various issues in their professional and social life. The professional activity of a modern specialist - a graduate of an engineering technical university - requires compliance with environmental requirements in the design and operation of equipment, ensuring the economic efficiency of the production process based on the ownership of labor and administrative law, product sales, based on the requirements of contract law. The specialist should have knowledge of the regulatory legal acts regulating professional activities, use the necessary regulatory documents in their work, and be able to protect their rights. We can define the main objectives of the formation of legal competence: 1. Ensuring environmental safety. According to the UN, about 1500 new types of chemical products appear in the world every year. They increase the degree of environmental pollution and increase the risk of harmful effects on the human body. The production and storage of chemical products is associated with the risk of emergency and emergency situations. Therefore, knowledge of the fundamentals of legal regulation of environmental safety is a prerequisite for the preparation of future chemical process technologists. 2. Implementation of the state © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 267–276, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_27

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policy of forming an anticorruption outlook among students. 3. Education of tolerance. The beginning of the 21st century is characterized by the spread of religious and extremist sentiments. People live in Russia and come to the country from different cultures and religious trends. Therefore, the formation of a culture of interpersonal communication is an important component of a democratic society. In Russian society, the system of legal socialization, assimilation and application of legal norms in the consciousness and behavior of people is not fully formed. Awareness of the importance of compliance with laws and norms of legal behavior is possible only in a strong legal state. But the level of legal competence, or rather its absence, indicates that the right does not constitute “the direct dependence of a person on a person as a measure of his freedom and viability” [1]. Today, society is increasingly dependent on the quality of legal education, since the level and system of legal knowledge greatly influence the efficiency of human activity, both in society and in the aspect of professional activity. Speaking in the role of the subject, realizing their rights and obligations under the existing system of legal relations, everyone should have legal competence [2]. As shown by the analysis of the existing practice of legal training of a specialist in an engineering university, it is often limited to theoretical courses that do not allow to form a certain range of skills necessary for successful employment and adaptation of a graduate [3]. Practice shows that students much more actively delve into the content of regulatory legal acts when faced with the need to apply them to solve a specific issue. Moreover, the rule of law applied in this way is assimilated almost forever, since it was not just memorized, but “passed through itself”.

2 Purpose or Goal Building a state of law, without the simultaneous formation of appropriate legal knowledge and legal awareness by future specialists, which depend on legal education, is a rather complicated task. Without a high legal culture of free and active citizens, civil society, as well as a legal democratic state, cannot develop dynamically. A conceptual approach to the process of forming a legal culture is to consider it as the basis for the interrelation and interaction of the processes of socialization and professional development of the personality of a future specialist, ensuring his adaptability in the conditions of complication and expansion of functions of professional activity. The legal behavior of students is manifested as socially significant behavior, controlled by their consciousness and will, stipulated by the norms of law and entails legal consequences. It manifests itself only in the spheres regulated by law, and therefore can be divided into two opposite types - legal and illegal. Legitimate behavior is provided for by permissive norms, unlawful - prohibiting ones. Both kinds of behavior are rational, since they are stipulated in advance by the established norms of behavior. Legal behavior is closely related to legal awareness, which ensures a person’s socially active position in the legal sphere, acting as an effective tool for the realization of law, a way to translate his prescriptions into people’s practical actions, and finally, a prerequisite for developing respect for the law, developing legal thinking, and being able to judge all competently processes and phenomena of legal life [4].

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A high level of legal awareness of the individual is a prerequisite for the formation of a legal state. At the same time, the role of legal knowledge in different situations varies. In some cases, without legal knowledge, a person will not be able to show legal activity, in others, legal knowledge is not so significant. However, under all conditions, they are necessary for the legal activity of the individual, its association with the legal life of society. A modern engineer should carry on the production of new knowledge that could ensure the modernization of technological processes and improve the efficiency of production activities, organize the activities of the team being led and bear responsibility for the decisions made in the legal field. Competence approach in education allows you to highlight legal competence as a component of professional competence, formed in the preparation process. The process of forming students’ legal competencies is complex and represents a movement from the goals set by the teacher to specific learning outcomes. These are formed professionally significant qualities, the personal characteristic of an individual, reflecting his ability to use universal ways of activity based on the aggregate of legal knowledge in specific professional situations. The development of legal competence in the preparation of a specialist in a technical university implies not only the formation and development of relevant knowledge and skills, but also practical mastering of the content and features of professional activity in the process of its implementation, it is necessary to prepare students for the most important substantive and procedural aspects of this activity. These include: wide representation in the considered professional activity of such aspects as legal analysis of labor processes, their legal support, integrative nature of legal and professional activities. The purpose of forming the legal competence of students in an engineering university is to develop their skills of legal self-regulation as an expert. In accordance with the new educational standards, legal competence is presented in the form of general cultural competence in the preparation of students of chemical specialties (OK-4 - “the ability to use the basics of legal knowledge in various fields of activity”). But the volume of the discipline “Law” in the amount of 72 h allows to acquire the necessary minimum knowledge of the main branches of Russian legislation. To reach the level of formation of the legal professional orientation is not possible. Therefore, we consider it expedient to construct the learning process in such a way that the formation of a constant readiness to develop legal knowledge. The study of the discipline “Jurisprudence” is intended to contribute to the formation of the legal competences of engineering students in the framework of which they acquire the necessary knowledge to apply them for life in a legal state and future professional activity under the conditions of the new economic and political conditions of the Russian reality. In the course of studying this discipline, students form stable knowledge in the field of law; abilities of perception and analysis of legal acts are developed, including for applying this knowledge in their future professional activities; and also to form and strengthen the skills of practical application of the norms of law [5]. Legal competence is developed in social practice, by acting in a real situation or in simulated learning situations. The main element in this process is the activity of the student, his independent study of additional material on the topics of the discipline, the implementation of multi-level tasks.

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3 Approach The methodological basis for the development of legal competence is based on research in the field of the legal culture of an individual, which is reflected in the works of S.F. Volskoy, A.A. Zaitseva, V.G. Marnosova, G.V. Nazarenko, L.N. Nikolaeva, V.N. Savina, A.P. Semitko. The methodological basis relating to the study of legal consciousness and the legal education of students is reflected in the research: A.A. Batanova, D.S. Beznosova, Z.M. Gafarova, I.A. Ilina, N.N. Yarushkina. The leading methodological approach of modern education is the competence approach. A competent specialist is able to go beyond the subject of his profession, he has a certain creative potential of self-development. At the heart of the competencebased approach lies the culture of self-determination (the ability and willingness to selfdetermine, self-realize, self-develop). Professionally developing, such a specialist creates something new in his profession, even if on a small scale (new technique, method). He bears independent responsibility for the decision made, determines goals, based on his own value bases. The most complete definition of the legal competence of the future engineer is given by O. R. Chudinov. It includes four elements in legal competence: the result of education and training; a comprehensive description of the legal knowledge and skills mastered by the graduate; level of formation of legal consciousness; readiness and ability of the graduate to participate in the legal reality [6]. Summarizing what has been said, it can be noted that legal competence includes the legal literacy of a specialist (knowledge of laws), the ability to use legal acts, readiness for lawful behavior, the ability to protect one’s own and others’ rights. According to the activity approach, legal competence is considered as a result of interaction between subjects, during which regulatory standards of behavior are created in the form of legal norms, and its existence is a form of social interaction that reproduces old and produces new standards of legal behavior. An individual and creative approach involves the development of students’ motivation in the process of forming a legal culture. The main purpose is to create conditions for self-realization of the individual, to identify and develop the creative abilities of students. The use of a person-oriented approach in the pedagogical process demonstrates the importance of such factors for effectively developing the legal competence of a specialist as personal interest in their career growth; public recognition of success, the adequacy of self-esteem as a specialist. Since the development of legal competence is obtained in additional vocational education, the following principles should be noted as the basic principles for the formation of students’ legal competence: (1) the principle of voluntariness (students choose the form of classes they are interested in, which ensures their interest and activity in learning legal knowledge and norms); (2) the principle of professional orientation (the content of the work on the formation of students’ legal competence should be socially significant in nature, meet the urgent tasks of the development of production, comply with the law);

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(3) the principle of initiative and independence (taking into account the wishes of the students themselves, their initiative proposals). We rely on contextual learning technology in our research. Contextual training in the development of legal competence involves the organization of three consecutive stages. 1. Diagnostic-motivational stage. The main task of this stage is to diagnose the level of students’ legal competence and their personal interests in this area. The performed diagnostics makes it possible to build a system of motivation for the assimilation of legal knowledge, norms and regulations. During the joint discussion, students have the need to think about certain legal issues, their own values, and professional behavior. 2. Practical stage. The main objective of this stage is the actual work on the formation of students’ legal competence. To do this, it is necessary to create appropriate conditions, sort out concrete examples of compliance with and violations of legal norms with students, give them the opportunity to express their own opinions on various situations. It is important to create game (training) conditions for the assignment by students of legal norms and regulations. In this way, students will be able to consolidate their knowledge in practice, simulating situations of the necessary and correct choice. 3. Self-design stage. The main task at this stage is to assist students in their ability to independently design situations of legal behavior, reflect on their actions and actions, be able to carry out self-diagnostics, and analyze their behavior. You can use both individual and group forms of work with students. The methodological basis that combines scientific theory with practice, law understanding and law enforcement, can be the use of active and interactive methods of teaching law [7]. Active learning methods are such learning methods in which the student’s activity is productive, creative, exploratory in nature and involves the active interaction of students with each other. Among active methods we distinguish role-playing and business games, case-method, psychotechnical games and exercises, work in small groups, discussions, work with legal sources, literary and legal texts, etc. Their introduction into the practice of teaching contributes to the formation of a complete system of knowledge among students and, corresponding to this knowledge, practiceoriented and relevant for a specialist skills and skills, development of the creative potential of students, the ability to apply knowledge and act under the conditions of standard legal regulations uatsy, development of communicative skills, relevant for professional activity. The discipline “Jurisprudence” includes 36 h of lectures and 36 h of practical training. This small amount of hours will allow you to build up legal competence only with the use of methods to enhance learning.

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4 Results The possibilities of the discipline “Process management with the purpose of The introduction of a model of self-fulfilling personality into the psychological-pedagogical concept of higher education will contribute to the development of professional and personal competences. The method of teaching the discipline assumes at the beginning the familiarization with theoretical material in lectures and conversations. Previously, all the material is laid out in a group on social networks. Based on the primary professional experience, an analysis of theoretical material with a focus on professional activities is carried out. It is necessary to write an essay “Law in Engineering Activity”, where it is necessary to show where, when and how it should be used. Works should be kept until the end of the course. Examples of the use of group forms of work in the classroom. Theme of the lesson: “Social security of working citizens”. Press conference. The student group is divided into two subgroups: (1) citizens’ welfare experts, (2) journalists. Groups get an advance task - using the legal systems Garant, Consultant Plus, press materials, to get acquainted with the essence of social security of working citizens. Each of the “experts” chooses one of the directions of social security and studies it in more depth, preparing for a speech at a press conference and answers to the questions of “journalists”. “Journalists” are preparing questions for experts. Discussion - the answers of the “experts” to the questions of the “journalists”. At the end of the lesson, the “journalists” write a short article - a report on the press conference. When using the business correspondence method, students receive folders with a description of the situation from the teacher; a package of documents to help find a way out of a difficult situation (you can include documents that are not relevant to this problem so that participants can choose the necessary information) and questions that allow you to find a solution. For example, the following case can be considered on the topic “Labor contract”: “An employee of the paint production plant K. was detained at the factory entrance gate with a stolen paint can from workshop No. 5, and a report was drawn up by an enterprise security officer. The director of the factory issued an order to dismiss K. from his job.” Is it legal? Justify the answer. Questions: what right is violated? Who is violated? Which regulatory documents can be invoked to protect their right? What needs to be done to restore it? Who is obligated to do this? The trial court or the simplified trial method allows students to play the trial for educational purposes. The main educational objectives of the use of the educational court at the training session are: students getting an idea of the purpose of the judicial process; understanding of the fundamental principles of the legal mechanism by which society resolves most professional conflicts. “At the chemical plant in workshop No. 3 an explosion occurred at night. 2 workers were killed. Who is responsible, what is the possible punishment?”

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Used business game on the topic: “Labor contract.” A group of students can be divided into three teams: employers, employees and the labor dispute commission. Experience shows that there are more people willing to become employers than those who want to represent workers. Therefore, it is better for the teacher to think over and distribute roles in advance. The creation of a labor dispute commission is a whole procedure that we carry out in accordance with Part Five of the Labor Code. The employers’ group is given the task: to accept only one employee and refuse to hire others, justifying their refusal legally. The group of employees is given the task: to get a job, why go around their rivals and interest the employer, using all the legal knowledge. During the first half of the class, students engage in dialogues, trying both legally and illegally to achieve a goal. Then the third group comes into play - the labor dispute commission. In case of refusal in employment, the employers’ group could make mistakes in stating the reason for the refusal, and now the commission examines the grounds and gives explanations, referring to the articles of the Labor Code. The same game can be played on the topic “Firing an employee”. Great interest among students is the application of technology Sinkveyn. This is one of the methods of enhancing students’ cognitive activity in the classroom. The word “blue wine” comes from the French word “five” and means “a poem consisting of five lines.” There is a lesson, the topic is very difficult to understand. The students are tired. We offer them a blue wine and find out how the students are perceiving new material. A quick way to change the type of activity without leaving the topic. For example, a blue wine on the subject of “Contract”. Agreement: (title). Compensation, gratuitous (two adjectives). Sets, changes, terminates. (3 verbs) Civil rights and obligations (a phrase that carries a certain meaning). Commitment (summary). As a final certification, students defend a project work, the topic of which is chosen independently taking into account professional interests (for example, “Development of a regulatory framework for the creation of a small chemical enterprise for the production of … .. products”. To identify the degree of preparedness of students to study the discipline “Jurisprudence” was conducted input control in the form of testing. Of the 30 questions presented, 11 students gave the correct answer to 7% of the test questions, 26 students to 10%, 29 students to 20%, 13 students to 45%. The results obtained made it possible for the teacher to identify the most poorly prepared students, which in many ways facilitated the problems of individualization of education. At the end of the semester was conducted test control. We got the following results: 12 students gave the correct answer to 60% of the test questions, 50 students to 75%, 17 students to 100% of the questions. In this work, we used the theoretical principles of measuring attitudes toward law, the legal installations of R.R. Muslumova (the purpose of the methodology is the study of the emotional-evaluative attitude of a person towards law and legal attitudes) and the provisions relating to the measurement of the professionally legitimate orientation of an individual T.G. Khashchenko, M.M. Shpak (questionnaire designed to study the formation of professionally legitimate orientation of the individual) [8, 9]. These authors consider in detail the level of formation and the emotional-evaluative attitude of the individual to the law and legal attitudes, which corresponds to the goal of our research.

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The study was conducted individually. Methods and questionnaires were presented to respondents with all the necessary instructions and materials. The study took into account the principles of anonymity, confidentiality and the principle of voluntary participation. Analyzing the results obtained by the first method, we can say that on the scale of attitudes towards law (13.06) and the scale of legal settings (18.86), students showed a high level of severity (according to the standards of the methodology, the maximum score on the scale of attitudes towards law = 15, according to the scale of legal attitudes = 20) Analyzing the results obtained according to 2 methods, one can say that students’ own ideas about themselves as subjects of legal behavior are expressed quite high. They also have an emotional-value attitude to legal behavior, to the extent that it becomes an intrinsic value. The following methods were used: “Assessment of the level of creative potential of the individual”, “Assessment of the level of conflict of the individual”, “Assessment of the ability for self-development and self-education”. The results are presented in the Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Test results

5 Conclusions The formation of students’ legal competence in modern engineering education conditions implies not only mastering relevant knowledge and skills, but also the development of personal qualities, as well as the ability to solve legal issues. Analysis of the results of our research showed that: - the level of formation of legal competence is determined by the activity of the student in the development of the necessary knowledge and skills, the formation of their own personal and professional

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position, the experience of their application in the professional environment. The more actively a student learns theoretical material, participates in various types of practical legal activity, the higher his personal and professional self-esteem, the more confident he is in his abilities. The combination of all types of educational and practical activities of the future specialist allows to increase the level of legal and professional training in general. The use of interactive technologies in the formation of legal competence ensures the achievement of mutual communication between students in the exchange of information, individualizes pedagogical interaction, activates students’ individual thinking processes, provides understanding of information. In this work, we used the theoretical principles of measuring attitudes toward law, the legal installations of R.R. Muslumov (the purpose of the methodology is the study of the emotional-evaluative attitude of a person towards law and legal attitudes) and the provisions relating to the measurement of the professionally legitimate orientation of an individual. Khashchenko, M.M. Shpak (questionnaire designed to study the formation of professionally legitimate orientation of the individual). These authors consider in detail the level of formation and the emotional-evaluative attitude of the individual to the law and legal attitudes, which corresponds to the goal of our research. The experiment was conducted individually. Methods and questionnaires were presented to respondents with all the necessary instructions and materials. The study took into account the principles of anonymity, confidentiality and the principle of voluntary participation. Analyzing the results obtained by the first method, we can say that on the scale of attitudes towards law (13.06) and the scale of legal settings (18.86), students showed a high level of severity (according to the standards of the methodology, the maximum score on the scale of attitudes towards law = 15, according to the scale of legal attitudes = 20) Analyzing the results obtained according to 2 methods, we can say that students’ own ideas about themselves as subjects of legal behavior are expressed quite high. They also have an emotional-value attitude to legal behavior, to the extent that it becomes an intrinsic value. Practical classes included in the study of the discipline “Law” were aimed at developing students’ practical skills, developing teamwork skills, communication, and understanding the theory and practice of comparative legal research, which they explain using professional context. They used active learning methods. Active methods allow you to create an educational environment in which theory and practice are learned at the same time, and this gives students the opportunity to develop a legal worldview, logical thinking, and literate speech; form critical thinking; identify and implement individual capabilities. At the same time, the educational process is organized in such a way that students look for connections between new and already acquired knowledge, make alternative decisions, form their own ideas and thoughts through various means, and learn cooperation. The formation of legal competence begins with the assimilation of the basic legal norms reflected in the discipline. Based on the solution of a set of legal tasks, functional legal literacy is formed, which provides for the analysis of legal situations and the solution of emerging problems, taking into account the experience gained and the situation. At this level, such qualities of the subject as mobility, initiative, responsibility and interest are manifested.

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At the final stage legal competence is formed as an integrative quality of the subject. It should be noted that in a competence-based approach to the definition of the essence of legal training, the necessary component of educational content related to the formation of legal competence should be invariant for any professional activity, i.e. useful to the graduate in the study of any new production, including in the event of a possible change of specialty. It is necessary to consider legal competence in conjunction with all components of the occupational professional activity of a graduate of an engineering university. In the process of learning, students have mastered the most important legal content and procedural aspects of this activity. These include a wide representation in the professional activity under consideration such aspects as legal analysis of work processes, their legal support, integrative nature of legal and professional activities The results obtained in the course of the study allow us to conclude that we managed to achieve positive dynamics in the formation of the legal competence of engineering university students. This is evidenced by their activity in organizing events “Corruption through the eyes of literary classics and a round table on the topic “Youth against Corruption”. Students also won prizes in the Olympiad on the right aspects of professional activity. The use of interactive technologies in the formation of legal competence ensures the achievement of mutual communication between students in the exchange of information, individualizes pedagogical interaction, activates individual mental processes of students, provides understanding of information.

References 1. Anikin, A.S., Postnikov, P.G.: Legal Competence as a Planned Outcome of Teacher Training [Electronic resource]: electron. data. - Moscow: Scientific Digital Library PORTALUS.RU, 26 October 2014. http://portalus.ru/modules/theoryoflaw/rus_readme.php?subaction=show full&id=1414354924&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&(freeaccess). Accessed 18 May 2019 2. Korotun, A.V.: The essence of legal competence. Pedagog. Educ. Sci. 7, 75–80 (2012) 3. Shchurikova, L.G., Barabanova, S.V., Garipova, O.N.: On the transdisciplinary approach to the legal education of technical university students. Kazan Pedagog. J. 1(132), 60–64 (2019) 4. Kruchinin, M.V., Kruchinina, G.A.: Formation of the legal competence of university students with the use of the project method in the conditions of informatization of higher professional education. Vector Sci. TSU. Ser. Pedagog. Psychol. 1(16), 107–111 (2014) 5. Lodkin, A.E.: Legal training of students of non-legal universities. In: Theory and Practice of Education in the Modern World: Materials of the V International Scientific Conference, St. Petersburg, July 2014, pp. 236–238. Satis, St. Petersburg (2014) 6. Chudinov, O.R.: To the concept of “legal competence of an engineer”. Bulletin of the Perm National Research Polytechnic University. Culture Story, Philosophy, Right, issue 6, p. 102 (2012) 7. Galiyeva, G.M., Yu, K.O.: On the question of the formation of the legal competence of engineering university students. Sustain. Dev. Manag. 6(13), 90–96 (2017) 8. Muslumov, R.R.: Diagnostics of students’ legal competence. Bull. Tyumen Inst. Adv. Stud. Staff Minist. Intern. Aff. Russ. 2(3), 12 (2014) 9. Khashchenko, A.V., Shpak, M.M.: Psychological readiness for legitimate professional activity. Bull. Univ. Manag. 10, 146–148 (2011). Portal of psychological publications PsyJournals.ru. http://psyjournals.ru/authors/65672.shtml, (Marina M. Shpak)

Applying Collaborative Methodological Solutions Around Students in Higher Education György Molnár(&) and Katalin Nagy Department of Technical Education, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary {molnar.gy,nagy.k}@eik.bme.hu

Abstract. During the digital transformation and digitalisation period, the transformation of the entire education system can be observed, which focuses on new, collaborative and technology-based learning, which makes the application of its effective learning environment increasingly visible. In this type of modern educational environment, with the expansion of the information and digital society, and with the development of new community learning spaces, we can continuously improve our professional competencies. Meanwhile, the informal learning and peer-to-pear learning, is gaining more and more prominence. On the one hand, our research is based on case studies, shared experiences of the teacher candidates in our institution, and on the basis of qualitative structured interviews with the students concerned. The authors would like to use the conclusions drawn from these in the curriculum development and content renewal of mentor teachers and teacher candidates. Keywords: Collaboration
Mentoring
Informal learning each other
Teacher training
Digitization


Learning from

1 Introduction Due to the need of permanent learning brought on by the continuous changes perceivable in the economic and social sphere of the information society the outlines of the pedagogical paradigm change become more and more visible. The respective impact concerns not only the transformation of the roles and tasks of teachers, but the specific structure of training schemes. The phenomena of digital transformation and overall digitalization generates the full modification of the educational sphere [1] leading to new, collaborative and technology-based learning [2] relying on an effective learning environment [3–7]. The given modern educational environment, the expansion of the information and digital society, and the formation of new community learning spaces call for the continuous development of professional competences. At the same time the need for peer learning, that is, informal learning among students involved in the educational process gains an increasing role [8].

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The Department of Technical Education operating a Teacher Training Centre at the Budapest University of Technology and Economic Sciences aims to integrate such new learning forms into the training of students enrolled in engineering and economics education programs. Such new approaches help us to monitor and test the emerging tendencies in education on a continuous basis and students are given an opportunity to find the optimal teaching and learning forms as well. We emphasize the collaborative and cooperative learning schemes during which “while learning takes place via mutual interaction between students and teachers, the existing connection network facilitating interaction plays a significant role as well.” [8] Such a feature plays a crucial role in our training profile. The respective student groups ranging between 50–100 candidates enrolled on an annual basis include two types of learners. In-service vocational education teachers with several years of experience frequently coupled with a professional background in the business and economics sphere and those with no teaching experience at all. Accordingly, we built our research on the hypothesis that differing learning habits require different learning environments as well. It was interesting to observe the changing expectations of learner-centred task distribution and the supporting role of the teacher on the part of today’s net generation. Consequently, an educational approach based on information and communication technology is essential as teachers familiar with such applications can integrate these devices and procedures in the learning process while motivating students and helping them to recognize the importance of learning. Therefore, the knowledge of such educational technology is indispensable for prospective teachers of economics and engineering, and the given background can be acquired only if they learn themselves. In our study we provide a survey of training methods and applications supporting the learning effort of our students. We have assessed their views on the respective utility and operational features along with the given methods promoting intragroup knowledge sharing. At first we present an overview of the most important digital device systems promoting cooperation and collaboration. The given interactive digital services and quiz engines facilitating shared work were selected due to their high popularity at home and abroad as well. Furthermore, such Web 2.0 applications can easily be learned in a short time as they do not require previous knowledge or special skills. Moreover, based on the adaptation of European Union recommendations including the DigComp framework systems short term training programs aimed at the improvement of teachers’ digital skills were launched in Hungary. Said programs were developed according to a domestically elaborated digital competence framework system [12–14]. Collaborative and cooperative learning “While collaborative learning results in realization of shared objectives, in case of cooperative learning the given goals appear on the individual level. Collaboration is an organized, synchronized activity aimed at the formation and maintenance of a perspective promoting the solution of a mutually shared problem. In case of group learning the group members participate in the problem solving effort on a mutual basis, task division or distribution is spontaneous and the given roles can be changed according to the type of knowledge component contributed to the specific work process. Conversely, cooperative learning takes place at the level of the individual learner, students work on

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a given theme by themselves and the respective learning outcomes and consequences are presented on an individual basis as well.” [9, 10]. 1.1

Group Work

Students work on a topic and they present the acquired information individually on their own, then the given information is processed in a shared manner in front of the group. Consequently, students can gain access to each other’s knowledge and the continuously available new information calls for continuous interaction as well [11]. The ideal group size is 3 to 4 members who can be selected in a variety of ways resulting in homogeneous or in-homogenous groups. Interactive group work can be performed by the following Web 2.0 services: 1.2

Plickers (https://www.plickers.com)

The establishment of a voting system via a mobile telephone operated by the teacher. The use of Plickers greatly simplifies immediate evaluation. Teachers need only a mobile device and students use a printed white sheet identifiable by a pictogram. When answering the teacher’s questions, they raise the sheet and turn it toward him. Depending on the given answer the pictogram can be turned in 4 directions (A, B, C, or D). One disadvantage is that it can only be used in case of multiple choice tests. The temporary break in connection and the resulting inability to reach the Internet is a frequent problem in schools. The AR-based Plickers offers a solution via turning the classroom into an interactive location without students using their phones or requiring Internet connection. In order to test the system, it is enough to register at the website and after establishing one or more classes and potentially entering the names of students the application can be downloaded on to a smart phone. Having printed the answer sheets, the system is ready for testing. It is easy to use as the teacher asks a question with four potential answer options. In response each student raises their answer card turned to display the letter representing the appropriate answer. After starting the application, a camera records the answers and the teacher can see each student’s replies. At the same time the results are available at the Plickers website. Thus the respective answers can be projected for the whole class to see, and exporting options are available as well. 1.3

Menti (https://www.mentimeter.com; https://www.menti.com)

The Mentimeter is a presentation software enabling students to answer questions via the help of a code. The method does not require any instalment or adjustment as students can use their own laptops, tablets, or smart phones. The respective results can be shown in real time, but it is possible to hide them until everyone finishes answering. Furthermore, there is no need for documentation or additional administration as the results are automatically saved by the webpage and they can be downloaded later as well. The software helps the teacher in making the lessons interactive via surveying the opinions of students regarding a given question or issue. Moreover, it can also be used

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as a formative evaluation device. Another option is establishing a ranking order among the members of the class if they identify themselves by name before answering. Additionally, the system is suitable for preparing a traditional presentation and can help in the compilation of interactive word clouds too. 1.4

Wiki

The system enables students to construct their own knowledge networks and connect various webpages. “In case of cooperative learning this system helps students to take notes and share them with other learners. Furthermore, the teacher provides an outline for the concept or conceptual system to be discussed while allowing students to explain or define the given components in order to enable them to freely select the topic they will be in charge of. The given system can function as a work or management surface in case of collaborative learning, group, or class projects. The topic to be processed during the specific tasks incrementally increases while the means and intensity of publication or dissemination of the respective material dynamically vary. Consequently, each learner has the same role. Teachers and students can not only expand the content, but can attach data collections to the given pages along with providing feedback or making notes. The system is also suitable for teachers to prepare their own lecture notes and due to the crosslinking feature instructors can cite or make references to each other’s websites.” [10]. 1.5

Blog

The blog is such a system in which one, or less frequently, several authors or bloggers disseminate their publications according to a chronological order. Readers are provided an opportunity to reflect on or make comments to the given entries The use of blogs in cooperative learning: a group of learners establish a knowledge base by the use of their own blogs while the teacher is in the role of the supporter or motivator of the learning process. The use of blogs in collaborative learning: the instructor makes blog writing and offering comments concerning a specific theme a requirement for passing a given course. Teachers can write blogs themselves and require students to follow it or make comments. 1.6

Media Sharing Applications

Such services facilitate the publication of media content (picture, video, sound etc.) uploaded by users to a previously restricted group depending on a given case. While such applications motivate the user to creative work via the production of the given media component, they function as substantial knowledge bases. The use of media sharing applications in case of cooperative learning: the teacher identifies themes and students collect respective media components to be shared within the group. The use of media sharing applications in case of collaborative learning: arranging an exhibition or gallery of class work utilizing the given media. The participants can comment or analyse each other’s work and the discussion can be

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moderated or managed by the teacher. Surfaces created in this manner can promote creativity. Other uses: • collections established by the teacher or other professionals can support media sources or references to the given lessons; • shared media can promote visual education efforts; • instructional materials including demonstration videos placed on such surface can promote distance learning, independent content creation, and processing. The following is such a concrete application. 1.7

Padlet (https://padlet.com) - https://en.linoit.com/

The Padlet is a virtual wall to which virtual paper slips can be attached. Such slips could include videos, pictures, simple text, or even Learning Apps tasks. The wall can be shared with learners so they can work on the given tasks at home. Furthermore, differentiated learning activities and anonymous use options are available as well. In addition, the wall facilitates gamification, as students can select from assignments to be solved. The application also makes the collection of the ideas of learners and colleagues in a given topic and question possible. Students only need a smart device and they can take notes on-line, and sharing can take place via QR code or link. Unfortunately, this application is not free of charge anymore, only three pages are available without a fee [15]. The most frequent user options provided by the Padlet are: • • • • •

Brainstorming Question bank On-line student portfolios Conceptual maps Exit ticket

2 Community Bookmarks These options allow the user to save the addresses of webpages into a list for availability of content he considers important in the future. Each component of the bookmark can be labelled with key terms facilitating a grouping effort. The book mark collection receives a community role when we share them with others. Consequently, the shared bookmarks and the respective labels form a large, mutually usable set enabling the user to identify the websites marked by the given label. Compared to the use of search engines information acquisition can become easier this way. At the same time, we can find users interested in similar topics. Therefore, it is recommended to follow or monitor such collections as it facilitates obtaining up-to-date information. The use of bookmarks in cooperative learning: students and the teacher sharing their own bookmarks can help each other in obtaining information via using the resulting content during a project work. The use of bookmarks in collaborative learning: the

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teacher establishes a bookmark set of a given theme by the help of learners, thereby constructing the reference register of a given theme. The labels help in the categorization of the specific sources. The bookmarks related to the given subject can be shared with the learners thereby establishing a reference knowledge base. One such specific application is the Symbaloo. 2.1

Symbaloo (https://www.symbaloo.com)

The Symbaloo is a webpage for the collection of links facilitating individual learning routes. It is suitable for the creation of digital bookmarks regardless of the given search engine. One’s favourite links can be found via any computer and the links can be shared as well. Links to frequently used or essential webpages or web 2.0 applications should be built in a digital tile on the opening pages. All favourite webpages are automatically synchronised with the smart phone, or the tablet after downloading the Symbaloo application and registering. It is very easy to operate, and favourite websites or applications can be added by one click. The links can be grouped into a digital tile according to location, colour and/or pages, or themes. Its favourable appearance is coupled with an ability to create an attractive webmix or emphasizing links and topics. Students will enjoy the webmix to be used during project or class work. Students can be provided superfast access to websites via sharing the link in e-mail or on social media surfaces (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Symbaloo. Source: author’s own compilation

3 Applications Constructing Conceptual or Cognitive Maps Conceptual maps describe the given concepts and the respective connection system. Cognitive maps depict a thought system built around a central idea. By the help of webbased conceptual map and cognitive map preparation programs community figures can be elaborated and participants can construct the given maps together.

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The use of such devices in cooperative learning: students prepare conceptual maps on their own and later share it with the group. • The use of such devices in collaborative learning: the teacher identifies a topic and the groups prepare the respective conceptual map. • The teacher shares the previously prepared map with the students or assigns additional task based upon the given figure. 3.1

RSS Channels

RSS channels help users to read the content of the given websites without actually visiting the specific pages. Various channels can be collected on a uniform surface to be grouped according to different criteria later. Consequently, users are notified of any change in a given website without the need to visit it. Such contents can be shared with others on a common surface and if needed comments can be added. While they cannot be used for collaborative or cooperative work directly on their own, they can support group efforts in an indirect manner. A few examples of their use: During group work including wiki-based uploading of content members of the group can be immediately notified of the changes related to the project work, teachers can publish crucial information concerning the arrangement or content of the given courses. Relevant articles obtained from different channels can be shared by learners and students as well. Furthermore, both teachers and learners can recommend channels to the group for the purpose of sharing knowledge. Naturally the abovementioned equipment or devices are only samples from a wide variety available. These tools can be used either on their own or in a mixed manner. Below maintaining a somewhat distant perspective (not on device level) I will introduce a few methods motivating learning and utilizing either cooperative or collaborative approaches. 3.2

Project Work

During project work students can prepare unique products, services, or outcomes via a realistic, lifelike activity. A good project evokes student interest and proves to be significant and rewarding. Projects usually are inspired by questions and lead to further questions or issues promoting research. The teacher initiates the project, provides assistance in launching the effort, finding resources and in interpreting the respective results. It is crucial that students feel an ownership of the project. During implementation students can use web 2.0 devices and the outcomes can include wiki-type results, blogs, or diverse forms of media repositories. Project goals can be realized either on cooperative and collaborative foundations whose distinctions we have discussed earlier.

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Students Teaching Each Other

Community-based learning is one of the most advantageous forms of teaching and knowledge acquisition. This approach helps to improve student confidence, reinforces a positive attitude toward the given subject and the work effort in general. Teachers have to inspire students to share their knowledge with each other via the various sharing applications. At the same time in addition to sharing teachers have to allow students to become each other’s tutor as they should not rely solely on the teacher for assistance but help each other via the solution of tasks and problems. While only knowledge is shared among the students the type of learning is considered cooperative, collaborative learning requires mutual mentoring or tutoring. 3.4

Cooperating Groups

The first tasks are usually assigned by the teacher and the groups will gradually reach the independent problem identification and solution stage. Teachers play a crucial role in this process as after the identification or presentation of a specific problem they enable students to find questions and the respective solutions in a more complex manner. This method promotes interaction and cooperation among students with various backgrounds, the integration of their peers coping with learning disabilities, and the development of a cooperative problem solving strategy. In this case the teacher fulfils the role of advisor or counsellor within the group. The given training systems facilitate the formation of the groups and the use of web 2.0 devices including wiki in the implementation of the cooperative work process. As the specific tasks become more complex the group work can become more collaborative as well.

4 Our Empirical Research Today’s information-based society requires experience-based knowledge acquisition via a learning environment motivating a critical attitude and the achievement of significant results. Students searching for answers on their own experience the difficulties and joy related to a research process in addition to exploring and mapping the correlations and rules and constructing a personalized knowledge network of a given theme. Knowledge acquired via independent research tends to be more durable and longlasting than that of obtained during frontal teaching imparting external knowledge patterns. Web 2.0 devices can provide a significant background for the research effort enabling students to exchange their research results and constructing their own knowledge network via continuous feedback. Research can be performed individually via cooperatively monitoring feedback or in a collaborative form while exploring a given theme in a group format. 4.1

A Sampling of Our Research Results

One of the goals of our teacher training program is to familiarize prospective teachers with digital devices via assignments promoting the integration of ICT systems into their

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pedagogical practice. The given schemes call for feedback on digital communication options. Consequently, in the autumn of 2018 we surveyed the members of the abovementioned target group on their views concerning the integration of the respective technological options. While we prepared a statistical analysis of the 80 answers, below by the help of descriptive statistical methods we provide a brief diagram and textual description of the most informative research results (Fig. 2).

1%

1% kahoot

18%

redmenta

1%

google drive

5%

quizziz

58% 16%

learningapps socraƟve ripet

Fig. 2. The distribution of the types of interactive student tasks related to pedagogical practice. Source: author’s own compilation

The above diagram clearly shows that the “kahoot” digital quiz preparation program was the most popular. This service developed in Sweden was followed by the “learningapps” with 18% using rate and 16% of students relied on services provided by the “redmenta.” Furthermore, 5% of the respondents prepared its tasks with the help of the Google drive. 4.2

Evaluation and Summary

Learners can take responsibility for the knowledge acquisition process if they can determine the given objectives and the criteria for implementation and evaluation. Consequently, the specific learning process must include an evaluation or assessment component. In case of cooperative evaluation the group assesses the work after completion, while during collaborative learning evaluation takes place during the given effort as the formation of a shared knowledge network necessitates continuous reevaluation. In sum our research effort examined the efficiency of the aforementioned digital services in pedagogical practice along with the benefits they provide for prospective teachers We also examined how such advances can be integrated into the respective

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methodological culture. At the same time we asked our students enrolled in teacher training programs for a brief reflection or feedback regarding their views on the effectiveness of said methodological renewal. Our short and long distance goal is the expansion of ICT-based methodological innovation provided by digital pedagogy. Such approach not only improves digital skills, but can lead to increased student satisfaction and academic performance via the application of best practices and methods. Acknowledgment. The writing of this study was supported by the János Bólyai Research Scholarship provided within the framework of the New National Excellence Program.

References 1. Racsko, R.: Digitális átállás az oktatásban (Digital Transformation in Education), 328 p. Iskolakultúra, Gondolat Publisher, Budapest (2017). ISBN: 9789636937874 2. Hunya, M.: Digitális és online Tanulás (Digital and Online Learning), In: Széll, K., (szerk.) Az Európai Unió az oktatásról: stratégiai irányok és értelmezések, pp. 33–40, 8 p. Oktatáskutató és Fejlesztő Intézet (OFI), Budapest, Hungary (2016) 3. Benedek, A.: Mobile learning and lifelong knowledge acquisition, pp. 35–44, 10 p. In: Nyíri, K. (ed.) Mobile Studies: Paradigms and Perspectives: Communications in the 21st century. The Mobile Information Society. Passagen Verlag, Austria, Vienna (2007) 4. András, B., György, M.: Changing teaching and learning environment by the digital transformation, In: Gómez Chova, L., López Martínez, A., Candel Torres, I., (szerk.) Proceedings of ICERI2015 Conference, pp. 5723–5728, 6 p. International Association of Technology, Education and Development (IATED), Seville, Spain (2015) 5. Komenczi, B.: Electronic Learning Environments – a theoretical framework, In: Veronika, S., (ed.) New Technologies in Science, Research and Education, pp. 65–75, 11 p. Janos Selye University, Komárno, Szlovákia (2012) 6. Kárpáti, A., Király, A.: Collaborative, ICTs supported learning solutions for science education based on the SSIBL Framework, In: Király, A., Tél, T., (szerk.) Teaching Physics Innovatively: New Learning Environments and Methods in Physics Education, pp. 9–14, 6 p. Faculty of Science, Graduate School of Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary (2016) 7. Szűts, Z.: Online: Az internetes kommunikáció és média története, elmélete és jelenségei, 478 p. Wolters Kluwer, Budapest, Hungary (2018). ISBN: 9789632957784 8. Pál, M.: Számítógéppel támogatott együttműködő tanulás online közösségi hálózatos környezetben. (Computer assisted collaborative learning in on-line social media network supported environment) Magyar Pedagógia 2009/3 (2009) 9. Helga, D.: Kollaboratív tudásépítés számítógéppel segített tanulási környezetben – A tudásépítő interakciók elemzése (Collaborative knowledge construction in computer-assisted learning environments-an analysis of knowledge construction interaction) (2007). http://old. bmf.hu/conferences/multimedia2007/55_DornerHelga.pdf 10. Jenő, D.: Csoportos tanulás online környezetben (Group-based learning in on-line environment), TANÍ-TANI: PEDAGÓGIAI PERIODIKA: 53 pp. 35–41, 7 p (2010) 11. Robertson, Shawn L.: Interactive digital instruction: pedagogy of the 21st century classroom. In: Handbook of Research on Promoting Higher-Order Skills and Global Competencies in Life and Work, pp. 166–180. IGI Global (2019)

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12. Lewin, D., Lundie, D.: Philosophies of digital pedagogy. Stud. Philos. Educ. 35(3), 235–240 (2016) 13. Beetham, H., Sharpe, R.: Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Principles and Practices of Design. Routledge, New York (2019) 14. Barber, W., King, S., Buchanan, S.: Problem based learning and authentic assessment in digital pedagogy: embracing the role of collaborative communities. Electron. J. e-Learning 13(2), 59–67 (2015) 15. Csaba, R., Andrei, D., Kristóf, G.-A.: Gamification on the edge of educational sciences and pedagogical methodologies. J. Appl. Tech. Educ. Sci. 7(4), 79–88 (2017)

The Development of C&A Technique for Learning Management to Enhance Instructional Media Creation Skills in a Cloud-Based Learning Environment for Undergraduate Students Kanitta Hinon(&) King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected]

Abstract. The development of C&A Technique for learning management to enhance instructional media creation skills in a cloud-based learning environment for undergraduate students for teaching and learning management direction. The students will plan, create, and use the established instructional media more accurately and appropriately. The technique can help teachers to guide the students to enhance instructional media creation skills. This research aims to (1) develop C&A techniques for learning management to enhance instructional media skill creation on in cloud learning environments for undergraduates, (2) study the effects of using C&A techniques for learning management to enhance instructional media skill creation on cloud learning environments for undergraduate, and (3) assess the skills to create media for students using the learning management techniques with C&A. The results of research found that: (1) The development of C&A Technique for learning management to enhance instructional media creation skills in a cloud-based learning environment for undergraduate students consists of Concept, Content, Analysis, Objective, Media, Utilize, Presentations, Evaluation, Publish, and Feedback on the planning application; (2) C&A Technique for Learning enables to enhance Instructional Media Creation Skills of learners at high level; (3) Learners using C&A Technique for Learning Management are satisfied with the model at highest level. Keywords: Instructional media learning environment


Learning management
Cloud-based

1 Introduction Technology is an important tool for managing activities more conveniently and rapidly. It can be seen from the past that technology has been developed progressively at all times to facilitate people’s careers; increasing work performance sufficiently and effectively; and saving money as well as time. Technology has been used in education throughout. Most specifically, it assists teachers in teaching and learning administration; activity creation and organization for students more easily and attractively. Besides, technology has the capacity to help teachers with personal filing for teaching © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 288–297, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_29

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documents, student portfolios, supplementary documents, learning assessment, scoring, and data collection from search engines as well as other sources. Not only that, but technology has also been used in the teaching evaluation and data storage in a cloudbased learning environment. In teaching management of Innovation and Instructional Media subject, teachers have the goal of encouraging students to put their knowledge into practice, invent work pieces, and conduct self-assessments. Thus, teachers must plan and design teaching methods for students to achieve learning objectives before teaching in class. The goal is for students to have and be able to create their own instructional media.

2 Research Objectives 1. To develop C&A techniques for learning management to enhance instructional media creation skills in a cloud-based learning environment for undergraduate students 2. To study the effects of using C&A technique for learning management to improve instructional media creation skills in a cloud-based learning environment for undergraduate students 3. To evaluate the instructional media creation skills of the students using the proposed C&A technique

3 Populations and Samples The population consists of 99 cases of students of Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, who registered for Innovation and Instructional Media subject, 1st semester, 2018 academic year. The sample group comprises of 33 cases of students majoring electrical engineering, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, who registered for Innovation and Instructional Media subject, 1st semester, 2018 academic year. The multistage random sampling has been applied for selecting the sample group.

4 Research Methodologies The research is divided into two phases as follows: 4.1

Phase 1 the Development of C&A Technique for Learning Management to Enhance Instructional Media Creation Skills in a Cloud-Based Learning Environment for Undergraduate Students Composes of Following Three Steps

First step: studying learning management with various instruction methods and instruction models to conduct analysis to find appropriate learning management for enhancing instructional media creation skills for undergraduate students

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Second step: learning management in cloud-based learning environment and online tool application for instruction management to provide appropriate learning environment that facilitates students to create works Third step: studying creation and implementation of each type of instructional media as guidelines for learning activity management to enhance instructional media creation skills 4.2

Phase 2 Study Results of Implementation of C&A Technique for Learning Management to Enhance Instructional Media Creation Skills in a Cloud-Based Learning Environment for Undergraduate Students, Comprising Three Steps as Follows

First step: study results of C&A technique for learning management from each assignment Second step: study instructional media creation skills of students implementing C&A technique Third step: study student satisfaction evaluation towards implementing C&A technique for learning management

5 Research Results According to the first phase study, the learning management comprises of components with certain related structures, which each component links to others from first component to second component and so on until the working process has been completed [1]. It means that teachers use learning design as they consider appropriate design, preparation and application for learning activities to facilitate students to achieve learning objectives. The learning management in suitable environment enables fast learning response as learning environment is one of crucial components for supporting students to achieve learning objectives completely [2]. Thus, C&A technique applies learning management in cloud-based learning environment combining operation system, processing and data storage system. It is a large learning management source facilitating teachers and students as users can adjust it in accordance with specific needs. These components are key for promoting cloud technology implementation which help C&A technique implementation for learning management easily successful. Besides, C&A technique learning enables students to create their own works through systematic working process. The students can conduct and present works on cloud system. The C&A (Create and Action) technique has been adapted from ASSURE Model, a widely used effective instructional media planning process [3]. The aim of C&A technique for learning management is to encourage student to be able to create and present results based on student participation. Meantime, C&A technique consists of 10 steps as shown Fig. 1.

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Fig. 1. C&A technique for learning management to enhance instructional media creation skills in cloud-based learning environment for undergraduate students

The details of each step are summarized as follows: Step 1: Concept is a component of creation process. commencing from theory, principal and guideline for instructional media creation and selection. The instruction contents are divided into subtopics and activity modules include any time on cloud learning system. Step 2: Content is the other component of the creation process. It assigns students to revise and prepare contents for instructional media creation by themselves. Step 3: Analysis is the step when students’ learning abilities are evaluated so as to design the instructional media in accordance with the contents and the levels of students. Step 4: Objective is the step of determining what students acquire from instructional media implementation. It can determine the learning results after using the created instructional media. Step 5: Media is the step of enabling students to think analytically and hence it leads to the stage of designing and creating media efficiently, achieving the objective of learning. Step 6: Utilization is the step after the instructional media are completely created. The instructional media can be used together with instructional contents appropriately and seamlessly. It is the step where the instructor can assess his work and improve it prior to presentation. Step 7: Presentation is the step that the instructor presents work wholly prepared by himself. The instruction is required to present instructional media systematically and correctly.

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Step 8: Evaluation is the step of assessing the performance of students along with their instructional media. an evaluation form is used by teachers and classmates as a guideline to give out the scores. Comments and suggestions are given so that the students can perfect their instructional media. Step 9: Publish is the step of knowledge dissemination mostly in form of video publication through websites and augmented reality. Step 10: Feedback is the last step of the process in this step, students are allowed to comment and give feedback on their work, performance and the whole process so that the process can be perfected in the future. In the second phase, the results of C&A technique implementation for learning management are investigated so as to enhance instructional media creation skills in cloud-based learning environment for undergraduate students. The results show that the 10-step process efficiently enables student to create the instructional media suitable for the contents, thanks to the first two steps of the process which requires student to thoroughly study theories, They have to study in the class and self-revise through cloud learning system [4]. It is the step of concept and knowledge provision for instructional media creation. Furthermore, students have to go through the step of concept and content before creating instructional media. When the content is ready, we are able to determine objectives of media creation including how to use [5] and whether it is suitable for level of students. Afterwards, students need to create instructional media in accordance with the plan and also are required to describe the individual steps of the process and prepare a report indicating detailed procedures. When the work has been completed, it is necessary to test the work to see whether it is practical for usage in the step of presentation [6]. In case of any amendment or addition, the suggestion has been made in the step of evaluation. Subsequently, it is the step of presentation again, the presentation of revised work has been made via online or cloud-based learning [7]. Eventually, the tenth step, feedback, means response from users who apply C&A technique for learning management and suggest what needs to be improved or added as well as improve designated activity and work.

Fig. 2. Sample of instructional media prepared by students

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Fig. 3. Sample of media prepared by students

Fig. 4. Sample of students’ works published on website

Figures 2, 3, and 4 are display students’ instructional media prepared by implementing C&A technique for learning management. It is found that students try to create works to reach the determined targets. They work in accordance with creation plan. The students can decently create instructional media for explaining contents. Apart from this, the evaluation form has been used to evaluate instructional media creation skills of students who apply C&A technique for learning management. The evaluation reflects working skills by considering working behavior and results in accordance with real condition [8]. The skill evaluation form has been applied together with interview and observation. The evaluation criteria are stipulated as follows: Evaluation Criteria: Level Level Level Level

3 2 1 0

means means means means

instructional media creation skills at high level (80–100%) instructional media creation skills at moderate level (50–79%) instructional media creation skills at low level (lower than 50%) without instructional media creation skills (0%)

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Table 1. Results of instructional media creation evaluation based on working behavior and results of students. Working

Working level Level 3

Level 2

Level 1

Level 0

1. Suitable for contents

Match with contents (80–100%)

Partly match with contents (50–79%)

Unmatched with contents (0%)

2. Creation planning

Design and creation steps (80–100%)

Partly design and creation steps (50–79%) Fairly stable and practical (50–79%)

Less match with contents (lower than 50%) Less design and creation steps (lower than 50%) Less stable and practical (lower than 50%) Less attractive (lower than 50%) Rarely use systematically (lower than 50%) Less aesthetic (lower than 50%) Media enables less understanding (lower than 50%) Less actively use (lower than 50%) Less use technique of media combination (lower than 50%) Less allow students to participate in using media (lower than 50%)

3. Stable materials Stable and practical (80–100%)

Results

4. Attractiveness

Attractive (80–100%)

5. Uncomplicated usage design

Systematically usage (80–100%)

Partly attractive (50-79%) Use the steps alternatively (50-79%)

6. Aesthetic

Aesthetic (80–100%)

Partly aesthetic (50–79%)

7. Easy-tounderstand

Media enables better understanding (80–100%)

Media enables partly understanding (50–79%)

8. Use instructional media actively 9. Effective media combination

Actively use (80–100%)

Partly actively use (50–79%)

Use technique for multi-type media combination (80–100%)

Use technique for some types of media combination (50–79%)

10. Participation

Allow students to participate in using media all the time (80– 100%)

Partly allow students to participate in using media (50–79%)

High

No design and High creation steps (0%) Unstable materials (0%)

Moderate

High Unable to attract students (0%) No usage steps Moderate (0%)

None of Moderate aesthetic (0%) Media unable to improve understanding (0%)

High

Not actively use (0%)

High

Techniques are not used for media combination (0%)

High

Not allow students to participate in using media (0%)

High

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Table 1 presents the results of students’ instructional media skill evaluation of students who apply C&A technique for learning management reveal that the most of works pass the third level. It can be implied that students using C&A technique have instructional media creation skills at high level as the scores are ranging between 80% 100%. It meets anticipation that C&A technique can enhance students’ instructional media creation skills to high level. Table 2. Evaluation results of student satisfaction towards C&A technique application Student satisfaction evaluation Learning management model 1. Understanding at the step of concept and able to practice 2. Understanding at the step of content and able to practice 3. Understanding at the step of analysis and able to practice 4. Understanding at the step of objective and able to practice 5. Understanding at the step of media and able to practice 6. Understanding at the step of utilize and able to practice 7. Understanding at the step of presentations and able to practice 8. Understanding at the step of evaluation and able to practice 9. Understanding at the step of publish and able to practice 10. Understanding at the step of feedback and able to practice Cloud-based learning environment and activity 1. Divide contents into subtopics beneficial for better understanding 2. Contents in each section enable understanding 3. Content amount suitable for each subtopic 4. Designated work for each lesson helps learners revising the lesson 5. Convenient to use online tools 6. System capability to respond user’s demands 7. Convenient to send work on cloud system 8. Ability of cloud storage and processing 9. Convenient to communicate among students and teachers Instructional media creation skill enhancement 1. Lesson activity helps better understanding instructional media creation methods 2. Designated work enables instructional media creation skill improvement 3. Cloud-based learning environment enables instructional media creation skill enhancement 4. Follow steps of C&A technique enables instructional media creation skill enhancement 5. Able to create designated media creation Total

Results x S.D. Level 4.42 4.36 4.60 4.73 4.73 4.85 4.85 4.73 4.85 4.91

0.66 0.65 0.47 0.45 0.45 0.36 0.36 0.45 0.36 0.29

High High Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest

4.85 4.94 4.94 4.94 4.94 4.94 4.94 4.94 4.94

0.36 0.29 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.24 0.24

Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest Highest

5.00 0.00 Highest 5.00 0.00 Highest 5.00 0.00 Highest 5.00 0.00 Highest 5.00 0.00 Highest 4.84 0.17 Highest

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The rating scale applied for evaluating satisfaction of students who implement C&A technique for learning management is divided into five levels. The interpretation criteria are described as follow [9]. 4.50–5.00 3.50–4.49 2.50–3.49 1.50–2.49 1.00–1.49

means means means means means

satisfaction satisfaction satisfaction satisfaction satisfaction

toward toward toward toward toward

model model model model model

application application application application application

at at at at at

the highest level high level moderate level low level the lowest level

Table 2 presents results of satisfaction evaluation of students who implement C&A technique to enhance instructional media creation skills in cloud-based learning environment for 33 undergraduate students, it has been proved that the satisfaction is at the highest level (mean = 4.84 and standard deviation = 0.17). It meets the anticipation that students are satisfied with C&A technique at high level or higher.

6 Conclusion The author aims to develop the Create and Action (C&A) technique for learning management to enhance instructional media creation skills in cloud-based learning environment for undergraduate students. The C&A technique will be used to guide the students in learning and creating the instructional media procedure in each step. The C&A technique consists of (1) Concept (2) Content (3) Analysis (4) Objective (5) Media (6) Utilize (7) Presentations (8) Evaluation (9) Publish and (10) Feedback on the planning application. It is important that teachers know and understand the content well enough in order to apply and create instructional media. It is critical that teachers should have a good sense of the basic instructional media creation so that they can create and utilize the innovative instructional media tools to suit the contents most accurately and explicitly. The C&A technique will be used in face-to-face and online approaches in the cloud-based learning environment. The results from applying the C&A technique for learning management can strengthen students’ skills to create instructional media at a higher level. Students have a strong knowledge of the fundamental instructional media creation and can use the instructional media tools properly in a teaching profession in the future. Acknowledgment. This research was funded by King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. Contract no. KMUTNB-63-DRIVE-25.

References 1. Brahmawong, C.: Composition of Academic Set of Education System, Bangkok, Thailand (2010) 2. Anupan, A., Nilsook, P., Wannapiroon, P.: A framework for a knowledge management system in a cloud computing environment using a knowledge engineering approach. Int. J. Knowl. Eng. 1(2), 146–149 (2015)

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3. Sundayana, R., Herman, T., Dahlan, J., Prahmana, R.: Using ASSURE learning design to develop students’mathematical communication ability. World Trans. Eng. Technol. Educ. 15(3), 245–249 (2017) 4. Tonghom, J., Sripahol, S., Patphol, M., Wannapiroon, P.: Develop of online curriculum to enhance creative innovation skills. Veridian E-Journal Silpakorn Univ. 2, 138–156 (2017) 5. Tubtimcharoon, N., Phiriyasurawong, P.: Teaching reduce intellectual education for the digital age. Panyapiwat J. 1, 198–207 (2014) 6. Brahmawong, C.: Developmental testing of media and instructional package. Silpakorn Educ. Res. J. 5(1), 7–20 (2013) 7. Chatwattana, P., Nilsook, P.: A web-based learning system using project-based learning and imagineering. Int. J. Emerg. Technol. Learn. 12(5), 4–22 (2017) 8. Sirasukon, K.: Rubric or Scoring Rubric. The Academic and Educational Standards, Bangkok (2007) 9. Srisa-ard, B.: Translation effects when using tools collect data scale estimate. J. Educ. Measur. Mahasarakham Univ. 1, 64–70 (1996)

New Learning Models and Applications

Method of Thematic Immersion in the Information Educational Environment as a Tool for the Formation and Assessment of Professional Competence of Future Engineering Teachers Tetiana Bondarenko1(&), Denys Kovalenko1, Nataliia Briukhanova1, and Vasyl Iagupov2 1

2

Ukrainian Engineering Pedagogics Academy, Kharkiv, Ukraine [email protected] National Defense University of Ukraine named after Ivan Cherniakhovskyi, Kyiv, Ukraine

Abstract. The paper describes the technique of thematic immersion in the information educational environment for the formation and assessment of professional competence of future engineering teachers. The theme of immersion is the development of electronic educational resources by future engineering teachers. The development of electronic educational resources is carried out in an environment as close as possible to the professional environment of the engineering teacher. In this environment, future engineering teachers are included in the pedagogical activity related to the themes of immersion. At the same time, learning acquires an activity character, that is, the formation and assessment of competence are carried out in the course of students’ practical activity: in the process of creating electronic educational resources. In order to take into account the various options for the manifestation of competence under the thematic immersion, a system of particular and synthesis indicators has been formed and a model for the integrated assessment of competence has been developed. The results of the technique experimental verification have been considered and directions for its further improvement have been outlined. Keywords: Engineering teachers
Immersion
Information educational environment
Assessment of professional competence
Electronic educational resources

1 Problem Statement The concept of the competence formation involves the transition from orientation to the material that is taught in the learning process to the orientation to the final result in order to measure success in education [1]. If earlier knowledge and skills were formed and assessed within the framework of individual subject matters, then with the transition to competence-based learning, it should be considered the interdisciplinary nature of the competence formation. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 301–308, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_30

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Such a transition requires the development of new approaches to the formation and assessment of the existing competence level. In this case, the problems of assessment are related to the fact that competence is not limited to the use of a set of subject skills, it is multidisciplinary one, and the level of multidisciplinarity increases as we move towards the final result. Since it is impossible to form competence in any single subject matter, the use of traditional assessment methods and tools will not provide objective results. Furthermore, if knowledge and skills are found in the learning process, then competence is manifested in the activities in the process of completing assignments after graduation. As L. Mamonova rightly emphasizes, general professional competence can be formed only by mastering the methods of specific work, direct participation in discussing, and solving specific professional problems of a different nature in real time (and not in the using of study case) given the many factors and risks of the real working environment [2]. Therefore, by virtue of the very properties of this category, one can assess the level of competence development only in the course of the relevant activity or by creating a situation of this activity and plung into it the one who is assessed [3]. The most suitable for assessing competence are methods based on monitoring the implementation of tasks in real situations, or in the case of students’ immersion in an environment as close as possible to the professional environment, to perform tasks of professional activity. According to many researchers, competence is inextricably linked with the experience of successful activity, which cannot be acquired in the appropriate amount during the course of study at a university [2, 4]. But in the case of immersion of students in an environment as close as possible to the professional environment to fulfill the tasks of teaching activity, we can provide students with the opportunity to gain “successful experience”, and lecturers can assess their level of competence at the learning stage.

2 Analysis of Recent Research and Publications The immersion method has been used as an active learning method with elements of relaxation, suggestion, and games in pedagogy for a long time and fruitfully. Unlike other teaching methods, where the main emphasis on students’ exposure is on persuasion, the immersion method relies heavily on suggestion. This approach was proposed in the works of the Bulgarian scientist Lozanov [5]. In the original version, the immersion method is an intensive learning program designed to improve the level of a foreign language or other knowledge as soon as possible. The method is based on an intense, almost instantaneous activation of memory, attention, and imagination, as a result of which the student absorbs much more information. Studying a foreign language for 6–8 h daily, a student very quickly inevitably learns to think in this language, and various types of learning sessions enable him/her to consolidate his/her knowledge. In the future, “immersion” as a model of intensive learning in any subject matter is actively used in the educational processes of various educational institutions. Over time, this method is modified in different directions [6–8]. According to the research of Ostapenko [8], there are various models of “immersion”:

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1. “Immersion” as a model of intensive learning with the use of suggestive influence; 2. “Immersion” as a model of a long-term study of one or several subject matters; 3. Thematic “immersion” or “immersion” into the image. Recently, due to the development of computer technology and the emergence of the ability to simulate virtual reality, the “immersion” term has acquired a slightly different meaning. Virtual reality (VR) defined as immersive, realistic, three-dimensional environments that involve visual feedback from body movement. VR boosts engagement by providing students with a strong sense of presence and immersion compared to traditional learning environments. The ability to simulate an environment and increasing a student’s sense of presence is one of the most important opportunities of VR to create more engaging educational experiences. Virtual reality, an immersive, hands-on tool for learning, can play a unique role in addressing many educational challenges. Authors of the paper [9] present examples of how the affordances of virtual reality lead to new opportunities that support learners. Authors of the article [10] proposed the Gradual Immersion Method (GIM), a cognitive-pedagogical approach that encourages intuitive learning using digital interactive devices and Augmented Reality.

3 Statement of Basic Material and the Substantiation of the Obtained Results Let us consider the similarities and differences between our immersion methods and the described immersion ones. First of all, we note that there is no virtual reality in our technique. In this case, the physical environment or immersion space is the very real classroom equipped with computer equipment that will be used in the same or similar form in the professional activity of an engineering teacher who develops and uses electronic educational resources (EES). This is the first. The second thing you need to pay attention to is the informational learning environment in which the processes of informational and educational interaction between students, lecturers, and computer technology tools arise and develop, and the student’s cognitive activity is being formed under the condition that the environment components are filled with objective content. We consider immersions in our case as a thematic immersion in the image of a lecturer. The theme of immersion is the EES development on a given theme within a separate subject matter (distance learning course - DLC, video lecture fragment, mobile testing system for control of students’ educational outcomes, and lecture presentation). The structural components of the information educational environment for the formation and assessment of professional competence of future engineering teachers (PCFET) are shown on Fig. 1.

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Fig. 1. The structural components of the informational learning environment for the PCFET formation and integrated assessment

It follows from the Figure that the information educational environment for the PCFET formation and assessment is quite rich and includes the following software apps and services: – Google search engine services for generating DLC content; – Moodle educational management system for DLC development; – YouTube cloud service for recording, viewing, and placing fragments of video lectures in the DLC; – Google search cloud services for the development of a mobile testing system for control of students’ educational outcomes [11]; – Computer system of information support for PCFET expert assessment. The first two software components are used to create a distance course in accordance with an individual task, and the YouTube cloud service is used to record and view fragments of video lectures. Educational content includes library resources of the educational institution, distance learning courses create by its lecturers, and Internet resources. Students use it to fill in the EES, which they create in the immersion environment, according to the individual task. A comprehensive assessment of the results of immersion of future engineering teachers in the information educational environment is implemented using the PCFET peer review information support system. Thus, if we consider the information environment from the point of view of the future engineering teachers, then it can be noted that this environment practically does not differ from the one in which he/she will work in his/her professional activity. It is in this environment that the future engineering teacher is immersed in the image of “I am a teacher”. Thematic immersion is carried out by assimilation by the future engineering teacher of motives, goals, tasks through suggestion, persuasion, and explanation, which the lecturer carries out. It should be said that in this case, the suggestion has a very real basis. As mentioned above, students are immersed in the environment, which is as close as possible to the professional environment. In this environment, the tasks of learning activities related to the EES development are performed.

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Future engineering teachers are included in the pedagogical activity related to the theme of immersion. They learn to search for necessary information in libraries and the Internet, select and structure information for placement in the DLC, develop DLC and monitoring tools to assess the assimilation of the information provided in accordance with the individual task, give lectures and make video of them, carry out an assessment of the quality of the developed DLC and test assignments, assess and perform selfassessment of the quality of lectures in video. In this case, we are strengthening the practical orientation of engineering and pedagogical education, stressing the need to gain experience in activities and the ability to put into practice the knowledge. At the same time, learning acquires an activity character, that is, the formation and assessment of competence are carried out in the students’ practical activity: in the process of creating DLC, fragments of video lectures, mobile testing system for control of students’ educational outcomes. While interdisciplinary ties are actively implemented; the most important professional qualities of the future engineering teacher are being developed: independence, creativity, initiative, and responsibility. The lecturer-student relationship in the immersion environment is replaced by the lecturer-lecturer relationship, and the learning process is transformed into a collaboration process among colleagues. In the course of their interaction, EES development issues are discussed, and the results of the work are analyzed. There is a situation of equality of the educational process subjects, which is aimed at the mutual formation of personal qualities: creativity, creative personality, and critical thinking. This situation is modeled by the directions of analytical activities of the educational process participants in the immersion environment. The traditional direction of analytical activity - the lecturer assesses the results of the students’ work. Innovative direction of analytical activity - students assess the results of the lecturer’s work in the following situation. The educational content of the immersion environment contains DLCs, which are developed by the lecturers. Thus, a student simultaneously uses these lecturers’ learning courses in the educational process and develops his/her own DLC in the immersive environment. He/she simultaneously acts as an expert developer of his/her own DLC and assesses, from the point of view of the DLC developer, the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning courses for lecturers that he/she uses in learning. Such an approach to assessing the lecturer’s work is fundamentally different from the traditional questionnaire “A lecturer through the eyes of a student”. In this case, the student acts as an expert developer of DLC, who has experience in developing his/her own real system. As a result of such a comparative analysis, the image of an ideal DLC, which should fully comply with the listed requirements, is being formed in the future engineering teacher. Comparing this ideal image with the real distance courses with which he/she works in the learning process, the future engineering teacher mentally outlines ways to eliminate the identified shortcomings, and he/she forms the motives for future activities. Another area of analytical work in the immersion environment is the analysis of video lecture records that will be placed in the student’s DLC. This analysis is carried out in the following areas:

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– analysis of the video lecture record by a student with a lecturer; – self-analysis of his/her own lecture in the record; – analysis of the recording of other students’ video lectures. Students use the YouTube cloud service to record video lectures. They record 2–3 fragments of a lecture with duration of 10–15 min. In this case it is possible to use aspect analysis, which differs from the complex one in a deeper consideration of one lecture side or express analysis for an overall assessment of the scientific-theoretical and methodological level of the lecture. Such an analysis of a lecture is an important component of independent analytical activity of an educator and the procedure for the joint activity of an educator of the real administrative control or certification in an educational institution. Such activities are aimed at studying and assessing the results of the learning session, finding the reasons for its successes and shortcomings, and developing recommendations for improving the lecturer’s work. By participating in such forms of session analysis, the future engineering teacher gains experience in the real practical activity within the walls of an educational institution, and he/she learns to objectively evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his/her pedagogical activity. According to the described immersion technique, an experiment was held in a group of 22 students of the specialty “Professional education. Computer Technologies”. Particular attention in the preparation of tasks was given to interdisciplinary relations. The tasks have been designed in such a way as to best fit the actual projects to develop EES. At the same time, part of the tasks was related to the development of real projects that were carried out on the order of other departments. In order to take into account the influence of various factors on the various options for the manifestation of competence when working with these projects, a system of particular and synthesis indicators has been formed and a model for the integrated assessment of competence has been developed. Thus, we obtain a multi-parameter estimate for each type of task for each type of assessment. As part of this technique, students learn not only to develop EES, but also to assess the results of their work. The types of assessments include the following options: the lecturer assesses the work of students, students perform self-assessment of their own works, students assess the work of their fellow students, students assess EES, which are developed by the lecturers and which they use in the learning process. Twelve particular indicators for each type of development are divided into three groups. Each group includes four particular indicators, which ultimately form a synthesis indicator. This structure of multiparameter assessments allows us to maintain a unified base for accumulating assessment results for all types of development, as well as to identify among the twelve indicators those that cause the greatest difficulty in the implementation of projects. Moreover, under this approach to assessing the results, we have the opportunity to evaluate not only integral competence, but also individual competencies that are part of it. Let us consider the results of using this technique on the example of the development of the task “Developing a learning presentation”. For this type of task, the following synthesis indicators were determined: The quality of the presentation structure; The quality of the presentation design; The quality of the presentation text.

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Fig. 2. Charts of frequency distribution of the average points of particular grades

The charts of the frequency distribution of twelve average points of particular grades for presentations are shown in Fig. 2. Chart 1 depicts the distribution of grades that the lecturer has given to students. Chart 2 shows the distribution of grades that students put up for the lecturers’ presentations. Charts 1 and 2 have a consistent look with a shift of Chart 2 towards higher grades, which is fully justified in the case of students assessing the work of lecturers. The correlation of students and lecturer grades exceeds 0.5, which indicates a fairly high degree of consistency. Chart 3 shows the distribution of self-assessments by students of their work. These results indicate a low level of reflection among future engineering teachers. The value of reflection in the work of the engineering teacher is great and diverse. Reflexive processes should be especially pronounced in the process of designing and constructing their educational activities and at the stage of selfanalysis and self-assessment of their own activities. That is why the processes of selfevaluation of the results of the EES design should be given increased attention. Unfortunately, the values of the correlation of lecturer’s assessments with students’ self-assessments for 30% of grades are close to 0, and in some cases, they have a negative value, which indicates opposite approaches of the lecturer and students to the assessment of work.

4 Conclusions A widespread problem in education is that traditional methods of lecture-based education lead to disengaged students. This lack of engagement is considered a major reason for many unfavorable behaviors hindering student success, including dissatisfaction, negative experience, and dropping out of the academy. If students’ engagement with a professional environment that is modeled in the classroom is increased, so does the students’ learning and personal development and when we simulate the professional environment of an engineering teacher in the classroom, we provide students with the opportunity to gain experience in successful professional activities. And lecturers can assess the level of student’s competence at the learning stage. Since the quality of students’ learning is largely determined by the degree of the student’s involvement in the integral sphere of future professional activity, the use of the proposed technique will be useful for the development of professional competence of engineering teachers.

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We had described learning opportunities provided by the immersion method that can complement traditional forms of teaching. The results of the experiment on the use of this technique partially confirmed its effectiveness, but the final conclusion will be made after the completion of the development of the computer system of information support for PCFET expert assessment and the processing of all results obtained by the means of the system.

References 1. On competence in education for sustainable development in the education sector. Discussion paper. UNECE Steering Committee on Education for Sustainable Development, p. 15 (2008) 2. Mamonova, L.: Affecting factors for the formation of general professional competencies of university students. Basic Res. 6–2, 365–368 (2012) 3. Martyinenko, O., Yakimova, Z., Nikolaeva, V.: Methodical approach to the assessment of graduates’ competencies. High. Educ. Russ. 12, 35–45 (2015) 4. Okulovskiy, O., Sapozhnikov, A.: The system of formation of professional competence of graduates of technical specialties. Young Sci. 1, 349–353 (2013) 5. Lozanov, G.: Suggestology and Outlines of Suggestopedy, p. 368. Gordon and Breach, New York (1978) 6. Godovanaya, O.: Suggestopedia and intensive methods of teaching foreign languages in Russia and abroad. In: Collection of articles of the International Scientific and Practical Conference Modern Condition and Prospects of Development of Scientific Thought, Ufa, pp. 167–169. Published by Aeterna (2015) 7. Serdyukov, P.: Accelerated Learning: What is it? J. Res. Innov. Teach. 1(1), 35–59 (2018) 8. Ostapenko, A.: Concentrated learning: models of educational technology. Zavuch 4, 84–98 (1999) 9. Hu-Au, E., Lee, J.J.: Virtual reality in education: a tool for learning in the experience age. Int. J. Innov. Educ. 4, 215–226 (2017) 10. Sanabria, J.C., Arámburo-Lizárraga, J.: Enhancing 21st century skills with AR: using the gradual immersion method to develop collaborative creativity. Eurasia J. Math. Sci. Tech. Ed. 13(2), 487–501 (2017) 11. Kovalenko, D., Bondarenko, T.: Cloud monitoring of students’ educational outcomes on basis of use of BYOD concept. In: Auer, M., Guralnick, D., Simonics, I. (eds.) Teaching and Learning in a Digital World, ICL 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 715. pp. 766–773. Springer, Cham (2018)

Education of IoT-Engineering in Austrian Vocational Secondary Schools Andreas Probst1(&), Manfred Grafinger2, Gabriele Schachinger3, and Reinhard Bernsteiner4 1

HTL Wels, 4600 Wels, Austria [email protected] 2 TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria 3 TGM Wien, 1200 Vienna, Austria 4 HTL Jenbach, 6200 Jenbach, Austria

Abstract. The Internet of Things (IoT), as an upcoming technology, has the potential to change the way engineers work and communicate among each other. The same is true for the companies’ workforce, which is spread all over the world, is of different origin and has different technical backgrounds. The constantly changing situation in industry always has and will continue to impact engineering education. Therefore, the implementation of IoT possibilities and technologies seems to be an appropriate advancement to develop the engineering education curriculum for today’s needs. IoT platforms are an emerging set of tools that provide technical support for the design and implementation of IoT-base systems and services. The aim and purpose of this research work is the starting point of the implementation of IoT technologies into daily engineering education. This research study lays the foundation for the introduction and development of a best practice approach in the field of IoT at Austrian vocational secondary education colleges of engineering so-called HTL. Mechanical and Industrial Engineering HTL-departments are the selected streams for this research work. Keywords: Internet of Things
Engineering education
Higher vocational education
Case based teaching and learning
Industry 4.0

1 Introduction With the beginning of the 21st century, the digital transformation, also called digitization, has begun. The changes and innovations in the field of information technologies affect many areas of private life, society and the economy [1, 2]. According to a study conducted by the World Bank, the effects of digitization are already evident. In 2017, the digital economy contributed 15.5% of global gross domestic product. At the end of this decade, the value should rise to 25% [3]. The effects of digital transformation on companies can be divided into six main areas [4, 5]: • Implementation and use of new digital technologies • Adaptations of value chains © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 309–318, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_31

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Structural changes in terms of organization and processes Financial aspects, in particular how to finance the digital transformation Skills of employees needed to implement the digital transformation An essential component of digital transformation is the Internet of Things (IoT)

This paper focusses on the integration of the concept Internet of Things in the existing curriculum of the Austrian vocational secondary education colleges of engineering. Since these curricula already exist these specific topics are subject to certain restrictions. Nevertheless, a pragmatic approach has to be developed to introduce these modern and forward-looking contents.

2 The Internet of Things and Related Concepts The roots of the Internet of Things date back to 1973 when Marc Weiser worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He is the founder of ubiquitous computing (“UbiComp”) with his vision that computers will be available anytime, anywhere, as needed. He described his vision “of a physical world that is richly and invisibly interwoven with sensors, actuators, displays, and computational elements, embedded seamlessly in the everyday objects of our lives, and connected through a continuous network” [6]. 2.1

Internet of Things

The term “Internet of Things” (IoT) was coined by Kevin Ashton, the Executive Director of the Auto-ID Labs at MIT [7]. Dorsemain et al. define IoT as a “group of infrastructures, interconnecting connected objects and allowing their management, data mining and the access to data they generate” where connected objects are “sensor(s) and/or actuator(s) carrying out a specific function that are able to communicate with other equipment” [8]. The Internet of Things “is a new technology paradigm envisioned as a global network of machines and devices capable of interacting with each other” [9]. “Once composed solely of mechanical and electrical parts, products have become complex systems that combine hardware, sensors, data storage, microprocessors, software, and connectivity in myriad ways” [10]. This definition especially stresses the integrative aspect. Besides different definitions and explanations various other terms are used like “hybrid things“or “digitally charged product” [11]. Sometimes IoT is called the “Internet of Objects”, “Internet of Everything” or “Cyber Physical Systems” depending on the point of view [12]. Several studies predict high growth rates for IoT. An overview of some studies is given by Columbus [13]. The study by International Data Corporation (IDC) is an example of the large number of different forecasts for market developments for IoT. IDC predicts that spending on IoT will increase by 15.4% from 2018 to 2019. In addition, the growth from 2017 to 2022 will be double digits. Currently, expenses in IoT are predominantly in the field of production (discrete manufacturing, followed by process engineering), transportation and utilities. In the

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production area, the applications focus on supporting production as well as the management of machines and plants. In the transportation sector, more than half of the spending is in freight tracking and fleet management. In the supply area, the focus is on smart grids for the supply of electricity, gas and water. Growth rates are highest in insurance (17.1%), public administration (16.1%) and health care (15.4%) [14]. 2.2

Industrial Internet of Things

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) highlights the use of IoT in industry, especially in the area of industrial production [15]. The IIoT is the evolution of the term “Industrial Internet” used by General Electric for the first time. From the point of view of General Electric, the Industrial Internet is primarily about the connection of sensors and actuators of industrial machines as well as the further integration with other industrial networks. 2.3

Cyber-Physical Systems

IoT is closely linked to the concept of the Internet of Services (IoS). One of the next steps in IoT integration and the usage of collected data is a service-oriented approach where the “things” are the basis for services. These services are then often made available on the Internet [16]. The integration of IoT and IoS is often expressed with the term Internet of Things and Services (IoTS) which is rather a concept and not solely a technology [17]. The IoTS is closely related to Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) Boyes et al. [18] define CPS as “a system comprising a set of interacting physical and digital components, which may be centralized or distributed, that provides a combination of sensing, control, computation and networking functions, to influence outcomes in the real world through physical processes.” In this definition, not only the physical things are addressed, but also “digital components”, meaning objects that are mapped into the digital world. Similarly, this is presented in the following definition which describe CyberPhysical Systems as “physical and engineered systems whose operations are monitored, coordinated, controlled and integrated by a computing and communication core.” [19].

3 Engineering Education In this section, engineering education in the context of new developments in industry is presented. In Germany, the 4th Industrial Revolution is promoted under the term “Industry 4.0”, but there is a close connection between IoT and Industry 4.0. Schuh et al. [20] state that “the German word Industrie 4.0 stands for the fourth Industrial Revolution, focusing on collaboration based on the Internet of Things”.

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The Importance of Engineering in Industry 4.0

With regard to Industry 4.0, the German Academy of Engineering Sciences (www. acatech.de), a national academy sponsored by the federal and state governments, has published a number of studies and publications whereas the study “Engineering in the Environment of Industry 4.0” [21] is of particular interest for engineering. The aim of the study is “to examine the positioning and significance of engineering in the area of Industry 4.0” and additionally to identify “problem areas and need for action” in the Industry 4.0 environment. 67 experts, renowned persons in management positions with at least 10-15 years of engineering experience were interviewed based on a questionnaire and an interview guide. After the survey, the interview results were presented and discussed in a workshop with distinguished representatives from different industries. The aim of the workshop was to “identify current problem areas and initial needs for action for engineering in the environment of Industry 4.0”. As depicted in Fig. 1 71% of the participants indicate that smart engineering is an integral part of Industry 4.0. The most important component of Industry 4.0 is the concept of a Smart Factory, with a rating of 94%.

Fig. 1. Survey of different understandings of Industry 4.0 [21]

3.2

Fundamentals and Changes

Looking at curricula from different ages it can be found that some content and subjects such as calligraphy and calligraphy can no longer be found in today’s curricula. Other contents such as mechanics, technical drawing and machine elements are still included in today’s curricula of mechanical engineers, although some of them are named differently. The Acatech study “Faszination Konstruktion” [22] examines the change in the field of engineering design. Before the introduction of CAD, the machine design was

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created by an engineer on the drawing board, followed by the preparation of the associated details and drawings by technical draughtsman who had learned the profession classically in a teaching profession. A change occurred with the introduction of CAD techniques. Nowadays, a designer is someone who sits in front of a CAD program and works with it. Designers with university degrees are often overqualified. On the other hand, the activity as a product developer, which deals with all facets of product creation (design, testing, costs, etc.), is seen as “more valuable than the activity as a designer”. 3.3

Future Requirements for Designers and Product Developers

Figure 2 shows the learned knowledge at technical universities according to Becker [23]. Strong differences can be seen between learned knowledge and required skills or abilities at the engineer’s workplace.

Fig. 2. Difference between knowledge taught and required at the workplace [23]

It can be concluded that, on the one hand, communication, as well as working in various and changing teams and project management are central areas in the daily work of an engineer, so that these topics can also be regarded as very important for engineering education. In addition, the required knowledge in methods and systems seems to be not sufficiently established in the current engineering training. The use of IoT technologies in teaching which involves different engineering disciplines could improve this situation. 3.4

Methods of Education at Austrian HTL

At engineering education Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning are two major possible forms of teaching. Mills et al. [24] found in their work the difference between Problem Based Learning and Project Based Learning in engineering education.

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They found that Project Based Learning is usually used additionally to teach major subjects such as mathematics or physics, whereas this is not the case with Problem Based Learning. In addition, they identify that Project Based Learning is often used in K-12 education. Looking at engineering education at Austrian HTL, Project Based Learning seems to be the dominating form. Kolmos [25] identifies various teacher roles in teaching. For Problem Based Learning the role of the teacher is a “process-oriented supervisors”. In Project Based Learning, the role of the teacher is more focused on a “product-oriented supervisor” who reacts to the students’ project work. In addition, Kolmos identifies a difference on the problem-solving level. Project work is more concerned with problem analysis and problem solving, while Problem Based Learning focuses mainly on the problem analysis. Looking at students’ project work several forms can be identified. The majority of possible learning and teaching settings is group work (teaching forms 2–6). At individual level, each student is responsible for his/her data and work and has to store it within the associated file repository. Figure 3 shows that a more complex form of teaching generates a more complex data stream.

Fig. 3. Complex data stream within group work

Already in cross-departmental projects the data security issues, as collaborative work with a file-based file repository is difficult. In teaching forms 3–6 (Table 1) potential problems often arise because of a spatial separation of the team members. In addition, different departments and organizations often have different approaches in setting up projects. One simple but sometimes annoying issue is naming conventions for files. A uniform structure across all participating organizational units must be defined beforehand. A set of rules and policies has to be established in order to provide a clear project structure. IoT platforms might help to solve these issues as well.

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Table 1. Learning and teaching settings at Austrian HTL No. 1

Forms Individual work

2

Group work within a class

3

Cross-departmental projects Projects between different HTL Projects between different types of schools Joint projects with Universities

4 5 6

Remarks Classical approach in engineering education Classical approach in engineering education Each department works on one discipline, e.g. Mechanics Challenge is communication and selforganization of students HTL focuses technics, other schools focus on marketing or finance Common work on research projects

Usage Often Often Seldom Seldom Seldom Seldom

4 IoT Platforms The market in the field of the Internet of Things is growing fast, starting from rather simple applications like using sensors to complex systems as part of Cyber-Physical Systems. The development of IoT-based applications could be a challenging endeavor due to the growing complexity of those projects. Since IoT projects are getting bigger and their functionalities are improved the selection and especially the orchestration of all required subsystems of such a project is a highly complex task. Therefore, platforms for the development of IoT-based systems have been developed and introduced on the market [26]. Since the Internet of Things is not just a technology, it is rather a combination of sensors, devices, networks and software systems. Thus, IoT-platforms have to support this concept of interrelated elements in order to support the development of various types of IoT-projects [27]. An IoT-platform is defined “as the middleware and the infrastructure that enables the end-users to interact with smart objects” [28]. IoT platforms are software systems that support the development of intelligent products and services in the field of IoT in order to ensure a seamless development of products and services [29]. Due to the importance of IoT platforms in industry, it is important to introduce them in engineering education as well. As already stated, Project Based Learning is the preferred setting at technical vocational schools in the field of IoT-based systems. Designing and implanting IoT-based projects requires multidisciplinary teams. This approach needs the cooperation of different departments within a school or the cooperation between schools. One benefit of IoT platforms is the support these various types of cooperation. The Thingworx ecosystem by PTC is the predominant IoT platform used in the engineering education at Austrian HTL.

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The ThingWorx Ecosystem

The ThingWorx Ecosystem consists several components that are seamlessly integrated. The ThingWorx Foundation platform is at the heart of the ThingWorx environment enriched with Vuforia, ThingWorx Analytics and Kepware. The virtual representation of machines, plants, devices can be defined in ThingWorx Foundation platform. Each existing object is described and reproduced with its properties and functions. By linking the properties to the real world, the object maps the state of the real object and thereby forms a digital twin. Process values may come from various sources. Augmented reality is the overlapping of the real world with virtual content. Vuforia Studio can be used to create augmented reality experiences where current properties, such as process values, are placed within these environments. The augmented reality experiences can be presented on smart phones or tables and glasses like the Microsoft HoloLens. By mapping real objects and linking process values to virtual things, ThingWorx Analytics makes it possible to learn the “normal behavior” of machines and processes. ThingWorx creates a model in this learning process. Using this model, it is possible to detect anomalies and trigger corresponding alarms. In addition, the model can calculate failure probabilities and thus control predictive maintenance. Kepware allows exchanging data between different data sources of automation and information systems. Kepware is based on OPC UA (Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture) which is a machine to machine communication protocol mainly for industrial automation

5 Conclusion and Outlook Since students are the workforce of tomorrow it is necessary to adjust the engineering education to the requirements needed at their workplaces. Integrating IoT approaches in an existing curriculum is a novel and innovative endeavor. Engineering this kind of systems requires collaboration of different knowledge domains, which has to be reflected in the curriculum and the teaching and learning settings. This research paper is the starting point of this journey. The next step is to define a detailed curriculum, which goes in line with the standard curriculum, which is defined, by law and the requirements coming from enterprises.

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Mobile Applications and Their Influence in the Cognitive Flexibility Cristina Páez-Quinde1, Víctor Hernández-Toro2(&), Santiago Velasteguí-Hernández1, and Xavier Sulca-Guale1 1

2

Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y de la Educación, Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador {mc.paez,rs.velastegui,manuelxsulcag}@uta.edu.ec Hospital Municipal Nuestra Señora de la Merced, Municipio de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador [email protected]

Abstract. An experiment was used in this research by using mobile applications and its influence on the cognitive flexibility of the elderly of Centro Integral del Adulto Mayor Nursing Home of Ambato-Ecuador. This research was aimed to verify changes in the elderly’s cognitive function through the use of an app designed to work in the mental flexibility processes. Some evaluation instruments were used for data collection, such as the Stroop Test which measures cognitive flexibility that was applied twice in the three months of research intervention. Also, a survey directed towards the researched population was used. Its purpose was to verify the use of the App in the elderly’s daily life. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was used to validate the reliability of the survey and the hypothesis; the Wilcoxon test verified the significant differences between the scores obtained with the application of the Test. It is concluded in the current research that the frequent use of the mobile application generates significant changes in cognitive functioning, specifically in flexibility. The research population were mostly retired and schooled elderly. A mobile application was created in order to meet the proposal objectives. It contains exercises designed based on the existing theory on mental stimulation and rehabilitation and created to stimulate memory, attention, and perception that are processes involved in cognitive flexibility. Keywords: Information and communication technologies applications
M-health
Cognitive flexibility


Mobile

1 Introduction Not knowing about the use of mobile applications as a stimulation tool by health personnel generates a limited use of them, reducing the chances of having a better and effective treatment in the cognitive deterioration that the elderly have. On the other hand, the use of traditional didactic methods when working in the mental field causes little cognitive stimulation, the scarce mental activities in the elderly due to the lack of the use of innovative tools generate a deterioration of retention and learning that are © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 319–326, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_32

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characteristic of the elderly, but they can be improved through mobile applications (App). The importance of this research project in cognitive stimulation to improve retentiveness in the elderly caused by aging wants to promote new ways of learning in this group of people taking advantage of technology as a resource for cognitive stimulation through the use of mobile applications, so that it will generate a change in the neuronal motivation process and spread the use of Apps in the nursing homes where the elderly spend most of their time. The elderly living at Centro Integral del Adulto Mayor Nursing Home are the direct beneficiaries with the application of this type of tools. The application process allowed the elderly to be evaluated and based on the results, actions for their treatment and the improvements they promoted with the use of non-invasive devices were recommended because they are considered a non-invasive method and they promote an improvement in their treatments at the same time. The elderly consumer is increasingly relevant to brands in terms of technology, which must adapt to changes in the macro demographic environment. Health care is one of the areas of priority interest for this consumer and is intended to demonstrate that this trend towards aging is consolidated, as well as their cognitive and physical deterioration make Health Apps [1] a technological tool that reduces their dependence on medication so that it strengthens their security. The prerequisite for its success as a product lies in the technological equipment and the use of the internet. Methodologically, a previous bibliographical review is carried out, an analysis of the content of the most popular apps and primary information is generated through a survey that concludes the potential of the product for the segment of consumers chosen in the middle term. Improvements in the quality of life as well as advances in science have meant that life expectancy has increased considerably in most countries. The elderly has been one of the groups where this change has been noticed the most. Being a group in continuous growth, it is necessary to design new services capable of satisfying the new technological and informative needs that this group has. There is a wide variety of lines of research related to the elderly (usefulness of the Internet to search for information that serves to its particular interests, application of technology in healthcare for this social group, informational literacy or its relationship with social ethics) and the real possibility of designing specific contents thus promoting new opportunities. A mobile application or app is software designed to work on smartphones and other mobile devices [2]. In recent years, these apps have suffered a boom in offers to their users entering the field of medicine both for professionals and for patients. Of all the “health apps”, there is a part dedicated to the field of nutrition. It is estimated that in the category of “diet and fitness” there are more than 5,400 apps. 95 apps were analyzed. In addition to the ones reviewed in the research studies, the apps turned out to be an option in the choice of strategies to improve and prevent certain diseases related to nutrition, exercise and daily habits, both from the individual point of view, as well as by professionals. Although the unreliability of the great majority, 51.57% were qualified as “low quality”. Most applications are not useful or safe, if they are normalized and improved in the future. They could be a very useful tool for society and the health system [3].

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2 State of the Art Mobile Learning is eLearning through mobile computing devices: personal assistant devices (PDA), Windows Machines (including handheld computers, laptops or laptops and desktop PCs) mobile phones [4]. Mobile learning is the intersection of mobile computing and eLearning, which is characterized by the ability to access learning resources from anywhere, at any time, with high research capacity, high interaction, high support for effective learning and a constant evaluation based on performance. Mobile Learning is an extension of e-learning [5], but it is characterized by its independence in relation to location in space and time. Quinn’s vision of mobile computing is based on portable computing with high interactivity, total connectivity and high processing. A small device that is always networked, allows easy data entry through pens, dictations or a keyboard (if necessary), and the ability to see images with high resolution and high sound quality [6]. In recent years, the development of wireless data networks has allowed the connection of devices such as tablets and electronic smartphones to the Internet with the ability to access educational content at any time and place without the need to be physically in the classroom. This phenomenon leads to a new modality of distance learning called “mobile learning” (known as m-learning) [7]. Define m-learning as a combination of e-learning and mobile computing that mixes mobile and wireless technology to provide learning experiences. Ally and Samaka (2016) add to the definition of m-learning that “… any type of learning that occurs when the student is not in a fixed and predetermined place is considered, or the learning that occurs when the student takes advantage of the opportunity offered by learning through mobile technologies”. Nowadays, m-learning software developers have offered educators applications of various topics to be used as support in the learning process (inside or outside the classroom). However, there is little documentation (design guides, best practices or scientific studies) of how an m-learning application should be projected and how the correct integration of the different educational components [8] (knowledge and skills) should be done, so that an application meets the didactic objective established; Therefore, a combination of intuition, skill and luck led programmers or software designers to develop a new application. Mobile applications facilitate the user to buy the product, either physical or online, where the customer can receive special offers or product offer, discounts and coupons. This type of applications allow people to obtain opinions and recommendations from different customers for an improvement of their services or either a very satisfied customer motivates or recommends other potential customers in their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter [9], social networks that favor communication between companies and 25 consumers. You can also integrate an infinite number of gallery options for products and services to contact forms and location maps. A mobile application [10], is a computer application developed to be executed through a smart mobile device, tablet or other device for which you want to implement. They are available in stores through which they are accessible by the public that wishes to use them [11].

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Currently, technology has been generating great contributions in the field of medicine by introducing non-invasive methods in most of its treatments, even more in relation to mental health. Cognitive flexibility is defined as the ability to adapt performance to the environmental conditions in front of a task or as a component of the executive functions [12]. There is consensus to consider the ability to plan behaviors aimed at a goal, the programming of actions necessary to achieve that goal, the monitoring of execution, the ability to control the interference of irrelevant stimuli, the flexibility to correct errors, incorporate new behaviors and to complete a task when it has been completed as components of executive functions [13]. Proposes that the inhibitory control capacity is the cognitive process on which the executive functions pivot. Inhibitory control integrates the ability to inhibit prepotent responses, the ability to inhibit ongoing responses and the control of interference from external stimuli or distractors. The proper or correct exercise of inhibitory control is an essential requirement for executive functions to occur. Difficulties in the inhibitory control compromise the working memory, the cognitive abilities of solution of interpersonal problems and the self-regulation strategies [14]. Social problem solving skills have important implications for socio-affective adjustment and social competence [15]. The achievement of socially competent behaviors such as the solution of interpersonal problems promote mutual intellectual and social support in relationships with peers, positively impacting affective, moral and cognitive development. Likewise, the achievement of skills for the management of social conflicts is central in the child’s socialization since it allows the development of future relationships and enables a long-term functional psychological and social functioning. Possessing cognitive flexibility to solve interpersonal problems makes it possible to generate a significant amount of solutions [16]. While the number of solutions is important to decide. It is our interest to consider the quality of the solution alternatives from the degree of inhibitory control, specifically impulse control that underlies them. This is how cognitive flexibility is defined to solve interpersonal problems such as the ability to: a. - generate responses with an adequate degree of inhibitory control, which translates into functional solution alternatives that combine the satisfaction of one’s wishes and needs with the wishes of the others and b. - consider the cognitive, emotional and positive behavioral consequences derived from such alternatives in all the people involved [17].

3 Methodology This research is experimental, based on the application of ADDIE for the development of the App. The results obtained were in numerical data measured through the Stroop Test for the mental flexibility variable with qualitative results and were also measured through a structured survey for the variable of mobile applications with the objective of knowing the frequency of the use of mobile applications, with Likert scale results. The research instruments were subjected to criteria by means of the calculation of Cronbach’s Alpha to estimate the reliability of the instrument, resulting in Cronbach’s alpha of (0.854), of the questions posed in the structured survey (Table 1).

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Table 1. Reliability statistics analysis Cronbach’s Alpha Number of elements ,854 10

Within the research, the total research population was used, i.e. 30 elderly, because the experiment was applied to the whole research population. It is necessary to mention that with the established variables and the tabulated values, the Wilcoxon rank test was used to generate the parametric tests (Table 2). Table 2. Test of Wilcoxon signed ranges N

Average range ,00

Sum of ranges ,00

Negative 0a ranges Positive 10b 5,50 55,00 ranges Draws 20c Total 30 a. Do you use mobile applications where you perform mental exercises? MAB > 0 > > > > > > > > > > > > > 0> 07 M > > > > BA > > > 7> > > > > > > > > 7 2 0 7> M > > > BC > > > = = < > < 7 0 0 7 MCB ¼ 7 2> 0 7> MCD > > > > > > > > > > > > > 0> 07 M > > > > DC > > > 7> > > > > > > > > > > > 0 1 5> R A > > ; : > ; > : 0 0 RD

ð27Þ

The solution obtained by Microsoft Excel is shown in the Fig. 15 (a sign convention of the clockwise moment is positive).

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Fig. 15. Solution obtained from the matrix inversion and operations (MINVERSE, MMULT [5]), built-in commands of Microsoft Excel

The solution obtained by Microsoft Excel [5] can be shown in the Fig. 16 (a sign convention of the clockwise moment is positive). The shear force diagram (SFD) and bending moment diagram (BMD) are plotted in Fig. 17 and compared with the solution obtained from SAP2000 finite element software. 2 kN

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The proposed method is employed the positive engineering sign convention for the shear force diagram, whereas SAP2000 [1] is considered a positive transverse shear stress sign convention. It can be seen that the results of the proposed method are the same with that obtained from SAP2000 [1].

4 Conclusions and Recommendations The presented work shows the development of a teaching procedure using a simple mathematic tool such as Microsoft Excel [5, 6] to analyse a simple structure via the equilibrium forces matrix equations. In this work, concepts in applied mathematics and mechanics are combined to analyse a model of joint-beam structure to obtain the solution of internal forces and moments which can be readily used for plotting shear and bending moment diagram. The results from the present approach are the same as those obtained from a finite element software package SAP2000 [1]. It is proven that the proposed procedure is simple and efficient for the teaching of basic mechanics with applied mathematics such as engineering statics and introduction to numerical methods in structural mechanics. Furthermore, it is straightforward to extend the proposed method for an indeterminate structural analysis [7, 8] in conjunction with the virtual force or the stiffness method.

References 1. SAP2000V18: Structural Analysis Program. Computers and Structures, Inc., Berkeley, USA 2. Pornpeerakeat, S., Chantrasmi, T., Chaikittiratana, A., Limrungruengrat, S.: Three dimensional finite element program for determination of cure level in thick rubber part. Key Eng. Mater. 728, 318–324 (2017) 3. Limrungruengrat, S., Chaikittiratana, A., Pornpeerakeat, S., Chantrasmi, T.: Finite element analysis for evaluation of cure level in a large rubber part. Mater. Today Proc. 5, 9336–9343 (2018) 4. Bathe, K.J.: Finite Element Procedures. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (1996) 5. Pornpeerakeat, S.: The use of microsoft office excel for teaching of structural mechanics. In: The 20th National Convention on Civil Engineering, Chonburi, Thailand, 8–10 July 2015, no. 592-CEE (2015) 6. Albright, S.C., Winston, W.L., Zappe, C.: Data Analysis & Decision Making: With Microsoft Excel. Australia Brooks Cole, Pacific Grove (2003) 7. Wang, C.K.: Indeterminate Structural Analysis. McGraw-Hill, New York (1983) 8. Kwon, Y.W., Bang, H.C.: The Finite Element Method Using MATLAB. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2000)

Conceptual Framework on League Learning Management Anutchai Chutipascharoen and Soradech Krootjohn(&) Department of Computer Education, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected] Abstract. This article proposes a novel learning model called “League Learning” based on a combination of cooperative learning methods and various competition principles including TGT, STAD, Gamification, and League Competition in sports such as British Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, etc. League Learning is designed to meet the needs of students in this generation. It employs Round-Robin format for scheduling competitions at weekly basis. The learning process consists of 5 stages, including Coaching, Training, Competing, Declaring, and Pairing. League Learning is suitable for classrooms of Middle School and High School students on the subjects concerning Mathematics, Computations, Analytical Thinking, Logical Thinking, and other related subjects. It raises student’s awareness to always be ready for the upcoming competition, while simultaneously promotes cooperation and collaboration with other students. With all the aforementioned, League Learning should be able to make students become more proactive and yield better learning performance resulting in higher learning achievement. Finally, with the support from today internet technologies, League Learning can be implemented online. This can publicly extend knowledge sharing among students worldwide and possibly result in reducing inequity in global learning societies as well. Keywords: Cooperative learning


Teaching method
League Learning

1 Introduction Presently, a number of instructional methods have been employed in classrooms. The common ultimate goal is to improve student’s learning achievement. However, their efficiency may significantly vary according to so many aspects of the suitability on how to implement them in diverse classrooms, including classroom environments, curriculums, subjects, contents, students and the generic classroom problems [1]. The cooperative learning has gained popularity in instructional arrangement for teaching. This approach focuses mainly on the activities of students to work together either in pairs or small groups. Yet, it also emphasizes on knowledge sharing and student reinforcement, which have shown to improve overall learning activities and the learning results [2]. Grouping small clusters of students will result in enhancing more effective knowledge creation process. This, however, depends mainly on the effort of all group members, who show the level of interest and participation in exchanging ideas within the group © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 480–491, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_47

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[3]. Cooperative learning styles are available in numerous ways, including Think-PairShare (TPS), Team Game Tournament (TGT), Student Team Achievement Division (STAD), Jigsaw, Small-Group Teaching, and so on. Each team focuses on the process of embodiment and cultivates a shared responsibility within the group where the success of the overall group is as important as the success of the individual [2]. Indeed, the research results of the TGT in the classroom have shown that the key problem hindering the success of students is to classify students into groups according to their learning capability. Smart students sometimes exhibit discontent with disrespect to those, below the class average, because they think that those below the average learn slower and contribute fewer scores for the team [4]. The results of the experiments were consistent with the comparison of the learning achievement and attitudes between control groups, competition groups, and cooperative groups. The cooperative groups made higher positive test performance than other groups. Pair-wisely, comparison of attitudes indicated that competitive groups promoted better positive attitude of students than the cooperative and control groups [5]. In conclusion, the research results of student’s satisfaction towards the communication within the group are at the lowest level. Essentially, smart students will not accept the opinions of other members because their scores depend primarily on the contribution of members in the group, at which the performance of the group relies heavily on the outcome of the member’s score [6]. In the 21st century, technology is of utmost importance to the development of industries. Specifically, the gaming industry has drawn high attention towards competition. Electronic sport, widely known as E-Sport, and its associated leagues provide players with more stimulation, higher cash flows, higher reward outcome, higher number of audiences per channel, and the possibility of E-Sport presentations from news agencies [7]. Selecting a winner of an E-Sport tournament based on Round-Robin method is widely extended. In fact, the use of this method is initially derived from the use in famous conventional sports such as the British Premier League, the Spain’s La Liga, the Germany’s Bundesliga, etc. The results of each match will turn into the points leading to the ranking process. After the Round-Robin is completed, the team with highest point is considered the winner of the league tournament [8]. Based on the aforementioned reasons, the authors then would like to propose a conceptual framework of a novel learning model called “League Learning”. The proposed model employs the key features of Gamification such as the Leaderboard and Levels, which prove to keep students more motivated than using the points alone or not using it at all [9]. In addition, it also employs the key features of Cooperative Learning by allowing students to work in team or pair. All of these are meant to maintain students’ attention throughout the lesson and, most importantly, increase students’ learning achievement.

2 Literature Review This section presents related theories, work, and research in order to propose a conceptual framework of a new learning model called “League Learning”, which is intentionally designed to support learning process using new technology for students in this new generation. The related information is delineated as follows.

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Cooperative Learning

Earlier, teaching is a process of transferring knowledge directly from teacher to students. This technique was considered as “Teacher-Centered” method at which teacher is the main source of providing lesson contents. Then, John Dewey proposed a more successful method namely “Learning by Doing” [10], which allowed students to become more engaged in learning process. Later on, Robert Slavin, David Johnson, and Roger Johnson proposed a novel learning theory called “Cooperative Learning”, which gained high attention from scholars and researchers up until now. The key idea is to divide students into small groups according to their learning capability [2]. Five essential elements: positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, face to face, social skills, and group processing, are identified for the key success of Cooperative Learning in the classroom [11]. After dividing students into groups, teacher provides assignment for students allowing them to work collaboratively in team. This is typically intended to enhance knowledge sharing and mutual reinforcement among members in the team. Cooperative Learning provides 3 benefits as follows: the effort to achieve, positive relationships, and psychological adjustment [12]. Subsequently, a number of variations of Cooperative Learning including Team Game Tournament, Student Teams-Achievement Division, etc., were introduced. Each of which will be elaborated in the following. 2.2

Team Game Tournament

Team Game Tournament (TGT) is a technique of Cooperative Learning methodology, which focuses on the competition between students in one team and other teams in the classroom. TGT follows 5 steps as: class presentations, teams, games, tournaments, and newsletters [13]. It is composed of teacher, team students, and tournaments [14]. The advantage is that it provides students with joy, challenge, and team collaboration during each competition. It is very important to be aware that TGT is not suitable for all levels of student [15]. Additionally, the selected game in the competition must be appropriate to the selected class as well. Yet, the total team points are the summation of all individual scores produced by the team members who compete with others in the other teams. Thus, it means that the success of the team is dependent heavily on the cooperation of all members. As a result, TGT sometimes is reported to cause conflict within the team resulting in lower outcome of learning achievement [4]. 2.3

Student Teams-Achievement Division

Student Teams-Achievement Division (STAD) is a learning method based on Cooperative Learning like TGT [2] but it is different in that STAD uses quizzes in the competition instead of games. By using quizzes, it requires less competition times but unfortunately requires more assessment times to determine the winner. Nevertheless, STAD still emphasizes on students’ cooperation within the group. Once a quiz is finished, all scores from all members in the group will be summed together to determine the team performance against other groups. The total scores will be sorted at which team with highest score is considered the winner. The STAD proves to yield better learning achievement than conventional learning method [15]. Additional, STAD

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was used in career and technology subject for grade 6 students. The result also confirmed better learning achievement but it was suggested that teacher should keep more attention to students during study time and group activity because some students were reluctant to participate in group activities [16]. This is intrinsically the cause and effect of conflict occurrences within the teams. 2.4

Student Classification

Student classification is an approach of dividing students into groups. The results from classification yield various formats, for instance, the groups of open class, group work, pair work, individual work, and the teacher-to-student or student-to-teacher [17]. Student group management is dependent mainly upon learning activity. There are a number of factors concerning students in the group classification such as levels of learning capability, size of classroom, student’s unequal experiences, class activity, lesson contents, etc. The dynamic group classification is also of importance. Other instruments to help group classification include student’s scores from pretest and posttest, or student’s GPA, etc. [18]. 2.5

Gamification

“Gamification” is an informal umbrella term for the use of video game elements in nongaming systems to improve user experience (UX) and user engagement [19]. This approach can greatly increase students’ attention because it makes them feel like playing game while studying. As a result, teacher can use it as a contribution to increase student’s learning achievement. This idea can also be applied in motivation period to make students ready for the main contents. Gamification is levels of game design elements of 5 key components: Game interface design, Game design patterns and mechanics, Game design principles and heuristics, Game models, and Game design methods [20]. The results from various research have found that the elements that are able to stimulate student’s attention from the most to least include leaderboard, point, and badge [21]. In addition, using leaderboard can draw student’s attention in terms of gaining classroom recognition. This is consistent with the result of motivation analysis and comparison at before and after doing activity using motivation test. It also is found that after the activity, students have higher average motivation scores than before the activity at the statistically significant level of .05 [22]. 2.6

Sport and E-Sports

Nowadays, conventional sports and E-Sports are a huge business industrial involving a great number of participants. At present, both have shown to increasingly gain audience’s attention and popularity [23]. Beside of enjoyment, they provide the contestants a large amount of incomes directly from high winning prize or indirectly from the number of audiences watching via both online and TV channel. Consequently, it leads to the advent of a big wave of commercial advertisements and sponsorships, including the attention from various media [24] that follow and present the competitions. However, the competition format between conventional sports and E-Sports are slightly different while finding the winner is similar. The competition format that is recognized

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as the most popular is Round-Robin. It is because of its nature that every contestant has to play against every other in turn. Once all of the competitions are finished, the order of contestants will be sorted according to the points they receive. The contestant with highest point is considered as the winner of the tournament. This competition format is also known as “League”. Besides, it is considered as one that offers most fairness to the contestants. 2.7

Summary

Due to the rapid change in technologies, this initiates challenges and opens the opportunity for developing modern learning models [25]. This work gathers various key features from existing learning methods and related techniques in order to propose a new learning model that promotes the work-in-team mindset based on Cooperative Learning. The idea of learning together for competition in terms of game from TGT and the use of quizzes for competition from STAD are incorporated. Student classification has to be taken into account as well. Using leaderboard of Gamification can increase student’s motivation. Additionally, the Round-Robin format from conventional sports and ESports is a good tool to create competition schedule. Based on these aspects, a novel learning model called “League Learning” is proposed. It is meant to be an alternative to learning methods. The details of this proposed model are given in the following section.

3 Conceptual Framework 3.1

Definition

League Learning is a learning model derived from League Tournament of conventional sports and E-Sports. It encourages students to exhibit their potential and capability via competition in the form of one-on-one format. Activities used in the competition may be chosen from games, quizzes, or any other activities that can provide conclusive competition result. Even though, League Learning relies primarily on competitions, it firmly maintains student cooperation and collaboration. 3.2

Objective

The main objectives of League Learning are to provide students the ability to develop themselves to be more proactive and importantly to improve students’ efficiency and learning achievement. In addition, it raises student’s awareness to be ready for modern society in terms of serious competition, being survival, interdependency, skill development, and being success. 3.3

Key Components

League Learning is composed of several essential components as the followings: Competitive Activity Competition activity is any activity that can decide who the winner is. This activity can be a brand-new activity or derived from the existing ones. The selected activity,

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however, has to be relevant to the lesson contents. Additionally, it has to be appropriate to the level of students and offers evidently fair competition. A good example of such activity is a Crossword game for English class of High School students. League Arrangement In case if there are more number of students than the number of classes. Students have to be divided into subdivisions (subgroups) so that one student will solely take part in one competition in one class. Each division may have its own name created by teacher, such as Division North, Division South, etc. The number of divisions can be calculated from the formula given in Eq. (1).   n d ¼ ceil p

ð1Þ

Where d is the number of divisions, n is the number of students, p is the number of classes in a semester. After obtaining the number of divisions, each student must be assigned to a given division. It is very essential that each division must contain students with the average capability level comparable to other divisions. In fact, it is very important to keep in mind that fairness must be applied equally to all students throughout the assessment performed by teacher. The clustering process that equally divides students into divisions is given in Fig. 1. This is an example of the implementation of League Learning containing more than one division.

Fig. 1. Clustering students to selected division

Competition Schedule The competition schedule is based on Round-Robin format so that all students within the division will have to meet others in the competitions. However, each pair will meet each other only once. The “home-versus-visiting” scheme like in sport leagues is not

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applied here. An example of a competition schedule using Round-Robin format specifying the date and time of each match is depicted in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Competition schedule of a division

Point Assessment Point assignment to each contestant in a given competition is derived from the criteria used by most Soccer Leagues as the followings: • The winner receives 3 points, while the loser receives 0 point. • In case of draw, both contestants equally receive 1 point each. An example of the competition results is shown in Fig. 3. After all matches are finished, the points will be calculated and shown on the Leaderboard.

Fig. 3. Result of each match

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Leaderboard and Award presentation Student ranking in each division is sorted in descending order from students’ cumulative scores and the results will be displayed on the Leaderboard. Furthermore, teacher may adopt award presentation as a reinforcement to student(s), who perform(s) outstandingly. This is mainly to raise more motivation on students. An example of Leaderboard is given in Fig. 4, displaying the number of match plays, wins, draws, losses, and total points respectively.

Fig. 4. Leaderboard

Pairing System Initially, student pairing is performed by dividing the Leaderboard into 2 zones: upper and lower, as displayed in Fig. 5. Then, the procedure proceeds as follows:

Fig. 5. Split zones

Step 1: Students in the upper zone can only pair up with students in the lower zone. Likewise, students in the lower zone can solely pair up with students in the upper zone. Step 2: Subsequently, students are free to select partner in the other zone. The pairing must occur in accordance with mutual satisfaction from students in both opposing zones, like in couple dating application. Nevertheless, students may opt not to make a pair, if they are content to work independently on their own. Yet, teacher is suggested to encourage students to make a pair in order to promote cooperation among students in the classroom. Figure 6 provides an idea of how to pair up students from different zones on the Leaderboard.

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Fig. 6. An example of pairing students

Step 3: At the end of each week, once all the competitions are finished, students may find their new partner, if needed. However, the pairing must be done according to the criteria described earlier. 3.4

League Learning Process

The process of League Learning management is weekly iterated and composed of 5 principle stages including Coaching, Training, Competing, Declaring, and pairing as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7. League learning process

In a given week, all 5 stages are performed until all the competitions are finished. The details of how each stage is carried out are given below. 1. Coaching: Initially, teacher provides students motivation and teaches the lesson contents according to the lesson plan. Teacher also provides students guidelines on how to train themselves before taking part in the upcoming competition. 2. Training: If students already have a partner, they can learn together in pair. They may review the learned contents, search for new information from other sources, practice their skills, and exchange knowledges together with their couple.

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(It is note that all students may have to perform the Training stage individually at the first week, since the Pairing stage has not yet begun.) 3. Competing: The Competing stage is set up using Round-Robin format. Each week, all students must take on the selected opponent in the form of one-on-one competition according to match schedule set by the teacher. Those who win the competition receive 3 points, while those who lose receive no point. In case of draw, each will equally receive 1 point. Teacher may employ any kind of games, quizzes, or other related activities specific to subject and level of students in the competition. Nevertheless, it is very important that the results from competitions merely indicate individual performance. They must not be used as any kind of indicator of team performance as they are in the TGT. This is essentially to prevent any conflict among students in the team. 4. Declaring: The results of all competitions are displayed on the Leaderboard. The ranking is calculated and updated on the board at weekly basis after the competitions are completed. 5. Pairing: This stage is mainly intended to promote cooperation and collaboration among students by allowing them to work in pair. At this point, a student selects his/her partner and works together in order to achieve better performance in the upcoming competition. In case of those who prefer to work individually, it is possible that they can opt to skip this pairing process so that they can proceed on their preferable learning style. Besides, students may quit their partnership and start working with a new one at any week. This is to make the pairing process more flexible, yet to prevent any kind of long-term conflict within the team as well. However, the pairing process is wide open to teachers to make their own decision on how the pairing be performed.

4 Conclusion The proposed League Learning is intended to be an alternative to other existing instructional methods. It incorporates pros, improves cons from various cooperative learning methods, and maintains competition concepts. It is well suitable for classrooms of Middle School and High School students on the subjects concerning Mathematics, Computations, Analytical Thinking, Logical Thinking, and other related subjects. League Learning is designed to meet Z-Generation students’ characteristics by employing competitive features from conventional sports and E-Sports. Furthermore, it raises student’s awareness to be ready for the upcoming competition, while simultaneously promotes collaboration among other students. With all the aforementioned, League Learning should be able to make students become more proactive and yield better learning performance resulting in higher learning achievement. Most importantly, the implementation of League Learning Management is under its way. Upon the completion, it should facilitate teachers and students the learning process in the classrooms. Moreover, with the existing technologies available nowadays, it is feasible that League Learning can publicly be implemented as an opened system, which allows students from different institutions to compete and even work in

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pair on the online environment. This is very essential to extend knowledge sharing among students worldwide, and hopefully results in reducing inequity in global learning societies. Acknowledgement. The publication of this work was financially supported by King Mongkut’s University of North Bangkok.

References 1. Pakprot, N.: Interactive instructional model using augmented reality based on edutainment to enhance emotional quotient (King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok) (2015) 2. Slavin, R.E.: Cooperative learning. Rev. Educ. Res. 50(2), 315–342 (1980) 3. Stahl, G.: Group cognition in computer-assisted collaborative learning. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 21(2), 79–90 (2005) 4. Sansuwan, W.: A development of web-based cooperative learning using teams-gamestournament technique for science curriculum of Mattayom Suksa II (King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok) (2015) 5. Ke, F., Grabowski, B.: Gameplaying for maths learning: cooperative or not? Br. J. Educ. Technol. 38(2), 249–259 (2007) 6. Bhuathongleth, A.: The development of learning outcomes on buddhist’s duty and etiquette of first grade students taught by STAD and TGT techniques (Silpakorn University) (2007) 7. Borowy, M., et al.: Pioneering eSport: the experience economy and the marketing of early 1980s arcade gaming contests. Int. J. Commun. 7, 21 (2013) 8. Ichim, B., Moyano-Fernández, J.J.: On the score sheets of a round-robin football tournament. Adv. Appl. Math. 91, 24–43 (2017) 9. Mekler, E.D., Brühlmann, F., Opwis, K., Tuch, A.N.: Do points, levels and leaderboards harm intrinsic motivation?: an empirical analysis of common gamification elements. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Gameful Design, Research, and Applications, pp. 66–73. ACM (2013) 10. Dewey, J.: Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. Macmillan, New York (1923) 11. Johnson, D.W., et al.: Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, 1991. ERIC (1991) 12. Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T.: Making cooperative learning work. Theory Pract. 38(2), 67– 73 (1999) 13. Slavin, R.E.: Using Student Team Learning. The Johns Hopkins Team Learning Project (1978) 14. Slavin, R.E.: Student team learning: an overview and practical guide. ERIC (1988) 15. Slavin, R.E.: Student teams and achievement divisions. J. Res. Dev. Educ. 12(1), 39–49 (1978) 16. Baibang, T.: The development of web-based instruction with collaborative learning STAD techniques to promote practical skills on Career and technology subject for prathomsuksa 6 students. King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (2018) 17. Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., Williams, M.: The TKT Course. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2005) 18. Hunsa, J.: Effects of using TGT teaching technique on engineering mechanic of diploma education (King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi) (2007)

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19. Deterding, S., Sicart, M., Nacke, L., O’Hara, K., Dixon, D.: Gamification. Using gamedesign elements in non-gaming contexts. In: CHI 2011 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 2425–2428. ACM (2011) 20. Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., Nacke, L.: From game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, pp. 9–15. ACM (2011) 21. Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., Sarsa, H.: Does gamification work?–a literature review of empirical studies on gamification. In: 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), pp. 3025–3034. IEEE (2014) 22. Tiramonkoljit, S.: Effects of Organizing Learning Activities in Science Based on Gamification Concept to Enhance Learning Motivation of Grade 2 Students. Chulalongkorn University (2015) 23. Hamari, J., Sjöblom, M.: What is eSports and why do people watch it? Internet Res. 27(2), 211–232 (2017) 24. Seo, Y.: Electronic sports: a new marketing landscape of the experience economy. J. Mark. Manag. 29(13–14), 1542–1560 (2013) 25. Freigang, S., Schlenker, L., Köhler, T.: A conceptual framework for designing smart learning environments. Smart Learn. Environ. 5(1), 27 (2018)

Methodology for the Production of Learning Objects Enriched with Augmented Reality by University Students Wilma Lorena Gavilanes López1(&), Blanca Rocio Cuji1, Javier Vinicio Salazar Mera1, and Maria José Abásolo2 1

Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y de la Educación, Universidad Técnica de Ambato, Ambato, Ecuador {wilmalgavilanesl,blancarcujic,javiers}@uta.edu.ec 2 Instituto de Investigación en Informática, LIDI (III-LIDI), Facultad de Informática, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP), La Plata, Argentina [email protected] Abstract. The Augmented Reality is currently considered one of the most promising emerging technologies; it has entered the educational process in an accelerated way as an innovative element that simplifies the interaction through mobile devices. This investigation analyzes an university innovation experience of Information Technology (IT) Docentship students, in the Human Sciences and Education Faculty of the Technical University of Ambato. It accomplishes the objective of designing learning objects enriched with Augmented Reality (AR), to measure the level of technological acceptance (TAM), the impact on academic performance, the proof of the training process and the production tools used. The results showed that the use of AR in university teaching has aroused a high degree of acceptance and motivation, an improvement in the academic performance and the advantages and disadvantages of the tools used for the production of objects enriched with Augmented Reality were determined. Keywords: Learning objects performance
Learning


Augmented Reality
TAM model
Academic

1 Introduction Information and communication technologies (TIC) are widely used tools in all educational contexts, especially in universities, generating a pedagogical change that fosters and promotes training experiences focused on deeper and more interactive learning, taking advantage of all its communicative, informational, collaborative, interactive and innovative potential [1]. Currently, among the most used tools we can mention: Social networks, gamification, cloud computing, learning analytics, MOOC, internet of things, personal learning environments, augmented reality, virtual reality, among others; all of this due to the reduction of equipment costs and the solid integration of mobile devices, which has influenced the easy access and availability for the vast majority of students [2]. The foregoing can be evidenced in the different reports on technological advances presented in the latest reports of Horizon on Universities [3, 4], which identify and © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 492–502, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_48

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describe emerging technologies that will have a significant impact on higher education in 1 year or less, such as mobile technologies and adaptive technologies; augmented and virtual reality, internet of things from 2 to 3 years; and artificial intelligence and mixed reality from 3 to 5 years, among the most relevant. It is clear that many of these technologies are present in classrooms, especially those that are related to mobile devices, most student’s own midrange to high-end cellphones and consider it as a motivating element to be used in classroom [5]. Also reviewing the Edutrens report, on the results of the technological trends radar of the Monterrey Technological Observatory [6], some technologies are presented which will be developed in a short time influencing educational tasks, mentioning augmented reality, intensive MOOCS courses and adaptive learning as alternatives for accelerated development. From the reviewed reports it is confirmed that one of the emerging technologies with greater tendency in education is the Augmented Reality, since it allows to enhance the physical information with digital information in real time using technological devices such as tablets or smartphones, allowing to create a new reality [7]. Augmented Reality (AR) was originally defined [8] as a technology that combines real and virtual elements, creating interactive scenarios in real time and recorded in three-dimensional space. The AR allows the user to perceive reality through the use of technological devices, accessing and interacting in real time with augmented information, through images, 3D models, videos, audio, and even tactile sensations according to their location in the real life. The applications of AR can be differentiated according to the use of different types of resources and devices, through the hyperlinks known as QR codes that allow mobile apps to take you directly to the content of a certain page; as a second element of visualization are the ‘markers’ that when scanned information pops up when recognized by a specific type of software; next, we have Augmented Reality without markers, in this case the triggers are images, objects or GPS locations; mobile devices with integrated GPS, compass and inertial sensors enabled the diffusion of applications called geolocation [9] and finally the increased vision, the most advanced level of AR since these elements can be visualized through RA glasses (Head Mounted Display), or a mobile device (Hand Held) [10]. In the present investigation an experience of university innovation is analyzed with student’s creators of learning objects enriched with Augmented Reality, the process was divided into 2 phases. Phase 1: Training and Production, with 26 students of the Docentship career, in the Application Software module, in the “Apply tools for the design and construction of learning objects” unit. The students applied pedagogical knowledge and technologies for the production and publication of the designed resources. Phase 2: Implementation and Evaluation, in this phase the student designers had to verify the functioning and the degree of acceptance of the objects produced with student users, 160 students participated from Basic Education, Educational Psychology and Tourism careers, going through a process of training and experimentation, at the end of this phase the students had to assess the level of technological acceptance of the resource used in the TAM model, took a survey to assess the design of the resources used, and finally went through a pre-test and a post-test to determine improvements in the academic performance of student consumers.

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The applied methodology was experimental field type with a probabilistic sampling, applying surveys to collect data and subsequent analysis using the statistical software SPSS 23.0, to obtain results, showing that both the designers and consumers of the information presented a high degree of acceptance in the categories of the TAM model, high valuation results were also obtained in the categories of the design of the objects enriched with augmented reality, which are: content quality, multimedia design, utility, accessibility, finally the data obtained from the pre-test and post-test of consumer students, confirm an improvement in academic performance. This article is organized as follows: Sect. 2 presents the methodology; Sect. 4 presents the results and Sect. 5 presents the conclusions.

2 Methodology The methodology carried out consists of 2 phases and was carried out during the academic period March–August 2018: – Phase 1: Training and Production, with student creators. – Phase 2: Implementation and Evaluation of educational content using AR, with consumer students. The process of Phase 1 was focused on the management of 3 tools for the design of resources with AR: Layar, Zappar and HP-Reveal, allowing students to develop pedagogical and technological competences. In this process, the designers went through a training process. 3 tools of resource design with RA were reviewed to work and determine their advantages and disadvantages. Later, the focus was on the design of multimedia resources, such as; videos, interactive activities and evaluations. Each of these objects were necessary to be integrated to RA markers, to be later tested using tablets or Smarphones in order to verify functionality, connectivity and other technical and pedagogical aspects by using pre-established satisfaction models. This process was carried out for 3 weeks in October 2018, this methodological process was carried out as illustrated Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Pedagogical training process for student creators

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For the production of objects enriched with AR, the methodology developed by [11, 12] was taken as a basis and one is proposed as shown in Fig. 2.

Phase 1: Information Structure

Phase 2: Multimedia Design

Phase 3: Assembly and Publication

Phase 4: Validation

Meta group selection

Navigation Map

Marker Design

TAM Model survey

Subejct selection

Video Design

Resources Intergration

Design survey

Defining objectives

Interactive Activitiesd Design

Use Guide Design

Data collection and results

Cognitive content selection

Evaluation Design

Web Publication

Fig. 2. OA production methodology with AR

For the production of learning objects enriched with AR, we worked with 26 students of 8th Semester of the Docentship career, Human Sciences and Education Faculty, groups of 3 and 4 members were created, with a total of 7 work groups, it was done in 7 weeks with a workload of 7 h/week, the seventh week was the validation phase, an internal demonstration was carried out among colleagues and they had to fill out form of advantages and disadvantages of the tools used, as well as their experiences as designers of these educational resources, This was done in September–October 2018. For the selection of the topic, it was coordinated with teachers and related careers of Basic Education, Educational Psychology and Tourism of Human Sciences and Education Faculty of the Technical University of Ambato. The selection of the curricular content was in accordance with the needs and expectations of collaborating teachers, the proposed multimedia contents such as videos, interactive activities and evaluations were created by the same students and were uploaded to broadcast channels to be then modified with the AR tool selected by each designer group, AR level two was used, markers were used linked to the information designed. Phase 2. Implementation and Evaluation of educational content using AR with consumer students, 160 students from different careers of the Human Sciences Faculty participated; the process was carried out for 4 weeks with a workload of 4 h/week, this was done in November–December 2018, according to Fig. 3.

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AR Training What is it?, Uses

APP Use in mobile devices Viewer Installation

Pre-test Entry Evaluation

AR Content Review Use of mobile devices, markers, user guide, brochure material

Process Validation TAM Model and Resourse Design Surveys

Post-test End Evaluation

Fig. 3. Implementation and evaluation phase. Source: Self-made

3 Procedure To assess this experience, two instruments were designed; a card with the TAM model and another evaluation card for the design of the educational resource; additionally two reagent tests. The first instrument that was designed was based on the TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) evaluation model, it is a model that was introduced by [13], where it is determined that the acceptance of a technology for the learning process is influenced by the utility perceived, the ease, the attitude of use and the intension of use, categories that have been extensively investigated in a series of studies, which showed they are important factors and that have a positive influence on the acceptance of technology in education [14–16]. The instrument consisted of a total of 14 items, divided into 4 sections: Perceived utility, Ease of use, Attitude of use and Intention of use, the responses for each item were presented with a Likert scale of seven options (1-Extremely unsatisfying, 2-Fairly unsatisfying, 3-Slightly unsatisfying, 4-Indifferent, 5-Slightly satisfying, 6-Fairly satisfying and 7-Extremely satisfying). The second instrument allowed to evaluate the designed resource, it was taken as a reference [17], it consisted of 14 items divided into 4 categories: Content Quality, Multimedia Resources, Utility and Accessibility; Each of the items was presented with a Likert scale of seven options (1-Extremely unsatisfying, 2-Fairly unsatisfying, 3Slightly unsatisfying, 4-Indifferent, 5-Slightly satisfying, 6-Fairly satisfying and 7Extremely satisfying). Students’ grades were also obtained from a pre-test and a post-test, to determine the improvement of the learning results obtained.

4 Results To measure the reliability index of the proposed instruments, Cronbach’s Alpha was used because it is one of the most appropriate instruments for this type with a Likert scale [18]. In Tables 1 and 2, the values reached are presented; in the first case for the

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TAM Model, it was 0.92 and in the case of the designed resources, a value of 0.93 was obtained; these values are found in the highest scale of the reliability level of the instruments used. Table 1. Cronbach’s Alpha TAM model Cronbach’s Alpha ,926

No of elements 14

Valid cases 160

Table 2. Cronbach’s Alpha designed resource Cronbach’s Alpha ,935

No of elements 14

Valid cases 160

To perform the analysis of the data obtained on the perception of students in relation to the TAM model on the use of the application, the statistical package SPSS 23.0 was used, performing a cross-tabulation test among the most relevant categories; the first group analyzed was: Ease of use * Intention of Use, Perceived Utility * Intention of Use; the Kendall Tau-b coefficient was used for ordinal data, obtaining the values of 0.5 and 0.6 respectively, determining that there is a medium and strong correlation between these variables analyzed as shown in Tables 3, 4 and Figs. 4, 5 respectively. Demonstrating that the ease of use of the designed resource using mobile devices such as cell phones or tablets was extremely satisfying, allowing the learning process to be fun, motivating and interesting since the relevance of the proposed content helped to understand the subject and to develop of the tasks satisfactorily inducing the students to the intension of use of learning objects enriched with AR, in new curricular contents and in other subjects. Table 3. Correlation table – ease of use and intention of use

Ordinal by ordinal No of valid

Tau-b de Kendall cases

Value

Approximate significance

,516

,000

160

Table 4. Correlation table – perceived utility and intention of use

Ordinal by ordinal No of valid

Tau-b de Kendall cases

Value

Approximate significance

,671

,000

160

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Fig. 4. Grouped bar chart ease of use and intention of use

Fig. 5. Grouped bar chart perceived utility and intention of use

The second group analyzed was: Attitude of Use * Perceived Utility, Intention of Use * Perceived Utility, the Kendall Tau-b coefficient was used for ordinal data, obtaining the values of 0.5 and 0.6 respectively, determining that there is a medium and strong correlation between the variables analyzed as shown in Tables 5, 6 and Figs. 6,7 respectively. Demonstrating that the categories Attitude of Use * Perceived Utility, Intensity of Use * Perceived Utility; it shows as highly satisfying, considering that the questions of these categories are related to the relevance of the presented contents and the interest of reusing the designed resource to emphasize new contents or learn others, determining that students have interest in strengthening learning using this type of emerging technologies in the classroom. Table 5. Correlation table attitude of use * Table 6. Correlation table intention of use * perceived utility perceived utility

Ordinal by ordinal No of valid

Tau-b de Kendall cases

Value

Approximate significance

,512

,000

160

Ordinal by ordinal No of valid

Tau-b de Kendall cases

Value

Approximate significance

,671

,000

160

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Fig. 6. Grouped bar graph attitude of use – perceived utility

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Fig. 7. Grouped bar graph intention of use – perceived utility

In short, the TAM model in its categories Ease of use, Perceived utility, Attitude of use, Intention of use, can be seen in Fig. 8 and 9, which both student consumers and student designers, presented extremely satisfying in all the questions asked, thus evidencing the technological acceptance of the resource designed and applied.

Fig. 8. Bar graph - TAM model summarized - student consumers

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Fig. 9. Bar graph – TAM model summarized - student designers

In the analysis of the evaluation of the designed resource we worked with a questionnaire of 14 questions, divided into 4 sections related to: Content quality, Multimedia resources, Utility, Accessibility, Fig. 10 evidence that the 160 students of careers of Basic Education, Educational Psychology and Tourism, who considered that the designed resource with AR, is Highly, Fairly and Slightly Satisfying in its great majority and in very few cases Unsatisfying: for some connectivity problems especially.

Fig. 10. Graph – summary of resource design

With the results data obtained from the two tests, a pre-test and a post-test, with the help of the SPSS 23.0 software, the Wilcoxon minimum significant differences test was

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performed, being 95% reliable, where the results of the Test 1 are statistically different to the values of Test 2, which is verified because the value of probability is below 0,05. This results show an evident improvement in the learning process of students using learning objects enriched with AR, as detailed in Table 7, the academic performance average improves from 7.56 to 8.19. Table 7. Post-test and Pre-test data Mean

N

Standard deviation Standard error mean

Par 1 Pre-test 7,5600 160 ,96258 Post-test 8,1950 160 ,68623

,07610 ,05425

5 Conclusions The 26 students of the Docentship career, designers of Learning Objects with AR, stated that the level of acceptance of this emerging technology was extremely satisfying in most of the questions of the TAM model, thus the level of academic training of student designers was satisfactory and allowed the creation of specific and applicable products. The student designers worked with several tools for the creation of objects with AR, concluding they are simple, intuitive and are available to all users, it is not necessary to have deep knowledge on programming and the access is free with certain limitations in some cases in regards to size and number of scenes that can be published. The 160 student consumers of the information responded, to both the TAM model and the resource design, with extremely satisfying in most of the questions, since the topic was relevant to the needs of each career; students used their own mobile devices, verifying connectivity and accessibility without problems, motivation and interest was relevant for being an innovative initiative when combining technology with pedagogy in the classroom. The pre-test and post-test data showed that there was an improvement in the learning results, showing a high average after using the designed resource, where the students could explore its content, analyze it and have it available at all times. The conducted investigation was valued as extremely satisfying by the educational community, in the future we intend to work with new topics and all careers of the Faculty, seeking to involve most of the teachers and students, for this, it is intended to implement training courses on the design of Learning Objects enriched with AR for teachers.

References 1. Cabero Almenara, J., Barroso Osuna, J.: Los escenarios tecnológicos en Realidad Aumentada (RA): posibilidades educativas en estudios universitarios. Aula Abierta Univ. Oviedo 47, 327–336 (2018) 2. Cabero Almenara, J., Barroso Osuna, J.: Posibilidades educativas de la Realidad Aumentada. J. New Approaches Educ. Res. 6(1), 44–50 (2016)

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3. Johnson, L., et al.: The NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Higher Education Edition (2016) 4. Becker, A., Giesinger, H.: The NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition (2017) 5. Brazuelo Grund, F., Gallego Gil, D.J., Cacheiro González, M.L.: Los docentes ante la integración educativa del teléfono móvil en el aula. Rev. Educ. Distancia 52, 1–22 (2017) 6. Tecnológico de Monterrey. Reporte EduTrends. Radar de Innovación Educativa 2017, Monterrey (2017). https://observatorio.tec.mx/radar-de-innovacin-educativa-2017. Accessed 06 May 2019 7. Abásolo Guerrero, M.J., Manresa Yee, C., Más Sansó, R., Vénere, M.: Realidad virtual y realidad aumentada. Interfaces Avanzadas. In: XV Esc. Int. Informática, Realiz. durante el XVII Congreso Argentino de Ciencias de la Computación (CACIC 2011) (2011) 8. Azuma, R.T.: A survey of augmented reality. Presence Teleoperators Virtual Environ. 6(4), 355–385 (1997) 9. Gavilanes López, W., Abásolo Guerrero, M.J., Cuji, B.: Resumen de revisiones sobre Realidad Aumentada en educación. Rev. Espac. 39 (2018) 10. Manresa Yee, C., Abásolo, M.J., Más Sansó, R., Vénere, M.: Realidad virtual y realidad aumentada. Interfaces avanzadas (2011) 11. Samaniego-Franco, J.B., Jara-Roa, D.I., Sarango-Lapo, C.P., Agila-Palacios, M.V., Guaman-Jaramillo, J.E., Contreras-Mendieta, J.A.: Case study: methodology for the development of learning objects (OA) in 3D for applications of augmented reality (AR). In: 2018 13th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), pp. 1– 7, June 2018 12. Sanchez Guerrero, J., Mera, J.S., Gavilanes Lopez, W., Reinoso, R.S., Davila, C.T.: Use of augmented reality AR in university environments. In: 2018 International Conference on eDemocracy & eGovernment (ICEDEG), pp. 291–297 (2018) 13. Davis, F.D.: Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Q. 13(3), 319–340 (1989) 14. Bárbara, F.: Aplicación del Modelo de Aceptación Tecnológica (TAM) al uso de la realidad aumentada en estudios universitarios de educación primaria. In: Roig, R. (ed.) Tecnología, innovación e investigación en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Octaedro, Barcelona (2016). (no. 3) 15. Cabero-Almenara, J., Galleo Pérez, O., Puente, P., Rosa, T.J., Gallego Pérez, O., Puente, Á.P.: La ‘Aceptación de la Tecnología de la Formación Virtual’ y su relación con la capacitación docente en docencia virtual. EDMETIC, Rev. Educ. Mediática y TIC 7(1), 225–241 (2017) 16. Cabero-Almenara, J., Llorente-Cejudo, C., Gutiérrez-Castillo, J.J.: Evaluación por y desde los usuarios: objetos de aprendizaje con Realidad aumentada. Rev. Educ. Distancia (53), 2– 17 (2017) 17. Cabero-Almenara, J., Llorente-Cejudo, C., Jesús Gutiérrez-Castillo, J.: Evaluación por y desde los usuarios: objetos de aprendizaje con Realidad aumentada. RED. Rev. Educ. Distancia, 2–17 (2017) 18. Garay, U., Tejada, E., Maíz, I.: Valoración de objetos educativos enriquecidos con realidad aumentada: una experiencia con almnado de máster universitario. Píxel-Bit Rev. Medios y Educ. 50, 19–31 (2017)

The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method for Statically Indeterminate Structural Analysis Sacharuck Pornpeerakeat1,2(&) and Arisara Chaikittiratana2,3

2

1 Department of Teacher Training in Civil Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand [email protected] Research Centre for Advanced Computational and Experimental Mechanics (RACE), King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand [email protected] 3 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand

Abstract. The stiffness method is one of the classical approaches used for the analyses of statically indeterminate frame structures with inclined members. Most of the text books use global coordinate systems to calculate the resultant and correction forces corresponding to structural sidesway modes. However, member forces in local coordinates are often desired in practical civil and structural engineering designs. Thus, additional computational efforts must be performed in order to transform the forces in global coordinates into the local systems. In our approach, the equilibrium equations at joints and correction forces of sidesway are derived in the local coordinates and expressed in form of matrices. Together with the application of stiffness method, the solution can be readily obtained in the local member forces without extra computational efforts in transforming the global coordinate system. The matrix solving procedure can be achieved using a general spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel. Keywords: Stiffness method equation


Structural analysis
Matrix equilibrium

1 Introduction The stiffness method is one of the classical approaches used for the analyses of statically indeterminate structures with inclined members [1]. Most of the text books use global coordinate systems to calculate the resultant and correction forces corresponding to structural sidesway modes [2–4]. However, member forces in local coordinates are often desired in practical civil and structural engineering designs. Thus, additional computational efforts must be performed in order to transform the forces in the global coordinates into the local systems. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 503–515, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_49

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In our approach, the equilibrium equations at joints and correction forces of sidesway are derived in the local coordinates and expressed in form of matrices. The bending stiffness of a member is also evaluated and then the stiffness matrix is constructed by assuming the negligible axial deformations. The sidesway correction forces are computed via the equilibrium equations matrix corresponding to the sidesway assumptions. With this technique, a correction factor and moments can be solved and expressed in the form of column matrices. The local resultant forces can be solved with a simple spreadsheet software [5]. The results obtained from the presented method is examined and checked with those obtained from the commercial finite element software SAP2000 [6]. Our approach for structural analysis can be described as follows. Consider an inclined member in frame structure with the global xy coordinate system and the local coordinate axes 1, 2 as shown in the Fig. 1. The member is subjected to an elemental loading, in this case a uniform distributed load w, as shown in the Fig. 1.

MBA MA B

FBA

VBA

FA B

Y

VA B X

Fig. 1. Internal local forces and moments acted on an inclined member.

The equilibrium conditions according to the local coordinate are X F1 ¼ 0 FBA ¼ FAB

∑M VAB ¼

=0

MAB þ MBA wLAB  LAB 2

∑M VBA ¼

B

A

ð1Þ

ð2Þ

=0

MAB þ MBA wLAB þ LAB 2

ð3Þ

We found that wLAB/2 is the reaction due to the uniformly distributed load obtained by the equilibrium equations and the forces and moments acting on the element can be shown as in the Fig. 2.

The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method MBA MA B FA B Y

505

FA B

MA B + MBA w LA B + LA B 2

MA B + MBA w LA B 2 LA B

X

Fig. 2. Forces and moments at equilibrium of the frame structures with element loading

The stiffness matrix method of bending [1, 4] can be illustrated in the Fig. 3. The internal moments are the combination of the bending stiffness moments and the fixedend moments of the frame.

w (F/L)

mfi

mfj j

i Lij mi i

mj

j

Lij

Fig. 3. Bending stiffness of the frame element

These relationship of internal moments can be expressed using the following matrix as 

Mi Mj



 ¼

mi mj



 þ

mfi mfj



 ðEIÞij 4 ¼ 2 Lij

2 4



hi hj



 þ

mfi mfj

 ð4Þ

Where mi and mj are the bending stiffness moments, in which mfi and mfj are the fixed-end moments both sides of applied element loading. E and I are elastic modulus and major moment of inertia respectively. Lij is the frame length and h is expressed as the rotation. With our approach, using the combination of the stiffness method and matrix equilibrium equation, any indeterminate frame type structure can be solved efficiently and the results in the local coordinate configuration can also be readily obtained. 1.1

Matrix Equilibrium Equation with Sidesway

A sidesway is commonly known as a lateral translations of a frame structure [2, 3] depicted in the Fig. 4. It is a rigid body motion caused by imbalanced forces. To obtain the correct the structural forces, the sidesway translation and force corrections are needed to be calculated. For the case of an external load acting on the structure, shown in the Fig. 4, it can be viewed as the combination of two parts; the loaded frame with sidesway prevented by the reaction R and the frame with a sidesway.

506

S. Pornpeerakeat and A. Chaikittiratana w (F/L) B

C

R

C

=

B

B’

C’

C

RΔ

+

D

A

Δ

Δ

w (F/L)

B

A

D

A

Frame with Sidesway Prevented by Reaction R

Frame Structure

D Frame with Sidesway RΔ

Fig. 4. Sidesway mechanism of the frame [2, 3]

The force equilibrium in the lateral direction requires that R þ cRD ¼ 0

ð5Þ

Where c is the force correction factor. With the above analogy, the actual internal moments can be expressed as the combination of the moments in the loaded frame with a sidesway prevention and the moments with a sidesway as expressed in Eq. (6). 

n o  n o Mij ¼ MijR þ c MijD

ð6Þ

MRij is the moments with a sidesway prevention and MDij is the moments with a sidesway translation. The matrix equilibrium equations are employed to solve each part on the right hand side in Eq. (6) separately.

2 Numerical Example To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, the numerical example is described as follows. Determine the moments acting in each member of the frame [2] shown in Fig. 5, EI is constant for each member and neglecting an axial deformation in each member. 30 kN/m B

C

6m

A

60o

D 3.6 m

Fig. 5. Frame structure with an inclined member in the demonstration problem

In the present approach, we firstly consider the equilibrium conditions for each member and free joints B and C of the loaded structure with a sidesway prevented by the reaction R as shown in Fig. 6.

The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method

B

MBC

MBC

MA B + MBA 3

√3

1 2 √3 2 1

MBC + MC B 3.6

(30)3.6 2

MBC + MC B (30)3.6 + 2 3.6

30 kN/m

MC B C

B

FBC

MBA

MC B C

FBC

3.6 m MBC + MC B 3.6

(30)3.6 2

MC D MBC + MC B (30)3.6 + 2 3.6

FA B

1

MA B

√3 2

R MC D + MD C 6

FC D C

MC D

MBA

2 √3 1

507

MC D + MD C 6

2 √3

MA B + MBA 3 6m

1 MA B + MBA 3

FA B

D

MD C

MC D + MD C 6

FC D

Fig. 6. Equilibrium of the frame structure

Using equilibrium equations of horizontal vertical direction in each free joint yields (Fig. 7).

B

FBC

MBA MA B + MBA 3

√3

1 2 √3 2 1

MBC + MC B (30)3.6 + 2 3.6

MBC

MBC + MC B 3.6

FBC

MC B C MC D

(30)3.6

FA B

R MC D + MD C 6

FC D

Fig. 7. Equilibrium at joint B (Left) and joint C (Right)

Consider joint B X X

FBV

FBH

pffiffiffi

3 MAB þ MBA 1 ¼ 0 ;  FAB þ þ FBC ¼ 0 2 3 2

pffiffiffi



3 1 MAB þ MBA MBC þ MCB ð30Þ 3:6  ¼0;  FAB  ¼0 þ 2 2 3 3:6 2

ð7Þ ð8Þ

Consider joint C X X



MCD þ MDC ¼0 6

ð30Þ 3:6 þ  FCD ¼ 0 2

FCH ¼ 0 ; FBC  R þ

FCV ¼ 0 ; 

MBC þ MCB 3:6

ð9Þ ð10Þ

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S. Pornpeerakeat and A. Chaikittiratana

With 4 equilibrium equations, the unknowns FAB, FBC, FCD and R can be readily solved. Thus we can directly obtain the reaction R. The matrix equilibrium system of the frame structure can be expressed as 2

 12 1 pffiffi 6 3 0 6 2 4 0 1 0 0

9 8 pffiffi  9 8 9 38 3 MAB þ MBA > > 0 0 >  0 > F > > > > AB 2 3 > > > > > >   = = = < < < ð30Þ 3:6 þ MCB 1 MAB þ MBA  MBC3:6 0 0 7 2 7 FBC ¼ 2 3  þ F > > > >  MCD þ6 MDC 0 1 5> > > > > 0 > > ; > > : CD > MBC þ MCB ; : ð30Þ 3:6 ; : R 1 0 2 3:6 ð11Þ

The first term on the right hand side of Eq. (11) is the moments of the element obtained by the stiffness method and the second term is the factor of element loading obtained by the equilibrium equations along the frame. In the case of the frame with a sidesway, the factor of the element loading term is absent and the reaction R is replaced by RD and expressed as 2

 12 1 pffiffi 6 3 0 6 2 4 0 1 0 0

9 pffiffi  9 8 38 3 MAB þ MBA > > 0 0 >  F > > > AB 2 3 > > = = > < 1 MAB þ MBA MBC þ MCB > < 7  0 0 7 FBC ¼ 2 3  3:6 F > > >  MCD þ6 MDC 0 1 5> > > > ; > > : CD > MBC þ MCB ; : RD 1 0 3:6

ð12Þ

By employing the stiffness method, the moments in each element can then be solved simultaneously and equilibrium. Thus, the unknowns in the structure namely, axial forces Fij and the reaction R and RD can be readily determined. To determine the unknowns Mij, we first consider the fixed-end moments for the member BC shown in the Fig. 8.

32.4 kN.m B

30 kN/m

32.4 kN.m C

3.6 m

Fig. 8. Fix-end moments of uniformly distributed load

The fixed-end moments of the uniformly distributed load [2, 3] mfi at both ends can be compute as mfB ¼  mfC ¼

1 ð30Þð3:62 Þ ¼ 32:4 kN m 12

ð13Þ

1 ð30Þð3:62 Þ ¼ 32:4 kN m 12

ð14Þ

The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method

509

The fixed-end moments and structural bending stiffness [1, 4] of the frame can be determined as " EI

4 LAB

þ

4 LBC

2 LBC

4 LBC

2 LBC

þ

# 4 LCD

hB hC



 ¼

mfB mfC

 ð15Þ

Substituting these values yields 4 EI

3

þ 2 3:6

4 3:6

4 3:6

2 3:6

þ



hB hC

4 6





2:444 ¼ EI 0:5556

0:5556 1:7778





hB hC

  32:4 ¼ ð16Þ 32:4

We can now solve for hB and hC 

hB hC

 ¼

1 EI



18:7266 24:0771

 ð17Þ

The moment of each element then can be computed by the element stiffness and fixed-end moments in Eq. (4) as follows 

R MAB R MBA



"

#

   4 hA mfA ¼ EI þ ¼ EI 32 hB mfB 3   12:4884 kN m ¼ 24:9688 4 LAB 2 LAB

2 LAB 4 LAB

2 3 4 3



0 18:7266=EI

 þ

  0 0

ð18Þ 

R MBC R MCB

"

 ¼ ¼

4 EI L2BC  L4BC EI 3:6 2 3:6

#

    2 mfB hB LBC þ 4 hC mfC LBC     2 1 32:4 18:7266 3:6 þ 4 32:4 24:0771 EI 3:6

 ¼

24:9688 16:0514

 kN m ð19Þ



R MCD R MDC



"

4 LCD 2 LCD

2 LCD 4 LCD

#

hC hD



¼ EI þ   16:0514 ¼ kN m 8:02569



mfC mfD

 ¼ EI

4 6 2 6

2 6 4 6



24:0771 0



1 þ EI

  0 0

ð20Þ

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S. Pornpeerakeat and A. Chaikittiratana

Since MRBA + MRBC ¼ 0 and MRCB + MRCD ¼ 0, it is verified that each joint is in moment equilibrium. Solving the reaction due to external applied loading in Eq. (11) where Mij is replaced by MRij we get, 2

p12ffiffi 1 0 6 3 0 0 6 2 4 0 1 0 0 0 1

pffiffi  9 9 8 9 8 9 8 38 þ 24:9688 0 > FAB > > 10:8118 > > 0 > >   23 12:4884 > > > > 324:9688 þ 16:0514 > = < = > = > = > < < ð30Þ 3:6 > < 1 12:4884 þ 24:9688 7 62:7193  0 7 FBC ¼ 2 2 3  3:6 ¼ þ 16:05148:02569 0 4:01284 F > > > > > > >  CD 1 5> > > > > 24:9688 þ6 16:0514 ; : ; > ; > ; > : : ð30Þ 3:6 > : 51:5229 R 0 2 3:6

ð21Þ The matrix system is formed and the solution by Microsoft Excel [5] is as follows (Fig. 9)

Fig. 9. Solution obtained by Microsoft Excel (MINVERSE, MMULT [5])

The axial forces and the reaction force R can be found as (Fig. 10) 9 9 8 8 72:422 > FAB > > > > > > > = = < < 47:023 FBC kN ¼ 51:523 > F > > > > > ; : ; > : CD > 43:010 R 3.6 m

3.6 m B

C

Δ

Δ

C’

A

C

B’ 1 2 √3

B,C

mf BC

B

B’ 1 √3 2

Δ ΔAB

ð22Þ

C’

mf BC mf CD

mf AB 6m C’

ΔBC B’ √3 2 1

Sidesway Mechanism

6m A

mf AB mf CD

D

Fixed-End Moments and Directions

Fig. 10. Sidesway translation with the geometrical relations

D

The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method

511

In the second part, the sidesway translation of the element AB is considered 0 BB0 pDffiffi 2 ¼ 3 and DAB ¼ BB 2D DAB ¼ pffiffiffi 3

ð23Þ

The sidesway translation of the element BC 0 0 pDffiffi 1 ¼ 3 and DBC ¼ C B

C0 B0

D DBC ¼ pffiffiffi 3

ð24Þ

Equations (23) and (24) are the geometrical relations of the translation (D). We can assume a fixed-end moment for the sidesway of the element AB as follows [1, 2] mfCD ¼

6EI 6EI D ¼ 2 D ¼ 100 kN m 6 L2CD

ð25Þ

Solving for the translation (D), D¼

600 EI

ð26Þ

The fixed-end moments of the element AB and BC are (Fig. 11)

6EI 6EI 2D mfAB ¼ 2 DAB ¼ 2 pffiffiffi ¼ 461:88 kN m 3 LAB 3

6EI 6EI D pffiffiffi ¼ 160:375 kN m mfBC ¼ 2 DBC ¼ 3:62 LBC 3 3.6 m 160.375 kN.m

B

C

C’

160.375 kN.m

B’

100 kN.m

461.88 kN.m

6m A

461.88 kN.m

100 kN.m

Fixed-End Moments and Directions

D

Fig. 11. Fixed-end moments of the sidesway mechanism

ð27Þ ð28Þ

512

S. Pornpeerakeat and A. Chaikittiratana

Solving for the rotations  EI

2:444 0:5556

0:5556 1:7778



hB hC



 ¼

461:88 þ 160:375 160:375  100



 ¼

301:505 60:375

 ð29Þ

hB and hC then can be determined as 

hB hC



1 ¼ EI



141:081 78:0489

 ð30Þ

By repeating the same procedure to obtain the moments in each element, 

D MAB D MBA

"

 ¼ ¼

4 EI L2AB  4LAB EI 32 3

#

 mfA þ mfB        2 0 461:88 367:286 3 þ ¼ kN m 4 461:88 273:772 141:081=EI 3 2 LAB 4 LAB

hA hB





ð31Þ 

D MBC D MCB

"

 ¼ ¼

4 EI L2BC  L4BC EI 3:6 2 3:6

#

    2 mfB hB LBC þ 4 hC mfC LBC      2 1 160:375 141:081 3:6 þ 4 160:375 78:0489 EI 3:6

 ¼

273:772 152:033

 kN m ð32Þ



D MCD D MDC

"

 ¼ ¼

4 EI LCD 2  4LCD EI 62 6

#

  mfC þ mfD       2 100 152:033 78:0489 1 6 þ ¼ kN m ð33Þ 4 100 126:016 0 EI 6 2 LCD 4 LCD

hC hD



Since MDBA þ MDBC ¼ 0 and MDCB þ MDCD ¼ 0, it is verified that the moment is equilibrium at each joint. Solving the sidesway reaction force RD using Eq. (12) where Mij is replaced by MDij (Fig. 12), 2

p12ffiffi 1 0 6 3 0 0 6 2 4 0 1 0 0 0 1

pffiffi  9 8 9 8 9 38 0 > FAB > 185:213 > > > >  23 367:286273:772 > > > > > > 3  < < = = < = 1 367:286273:772 þ 152:033 225:212  273:772 0 7 7 FBC ¼ 2 3  3:6 ¼ kN 152:033126:016 5 F > > > > 46:342 >  1 > > > > 6 : : CD > ; > ; > : ; 273:772 þ 152:033 RD 118:279 0 3:6

ð34Þ

The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method

513

Fig. 12. Solution obtained by Microsoft Excel (MINVERSE, MMULT [5])

The results of the axial forces and the sidesway reaction are 9 9 8 8 260:052 > FAB > > > > > > > = = < < 315:239 FBC kN ¼ 118:279 > F > > > > > ; : ; > : CD > 361:581 RD

ð35Þ

The correct moments can be obtained by employing the Eq. (5), substituting the reaction R and sidesway reaction RD yields 43:010 þ cð361:581Þ ¼ 0 c¼

43:010 ¼ 0:11895 361:581

ð36Þ ð37Þ

The correct moment Mij can be calculated with the correction factor as follows 





MAB MBA

MBC MCB

MCD MDC





  D      R 12:4884 367:286 MAB MAB þ c ¼ þ 0:11895 R D 24:9688 273:772  MBA  MBA 31:2684 kN m ¼ 7:59626 ¼





  D      R 24:9688 273:772 MBC MBC þ c ¼ þ 0:11895 R D 16:0514 152:033  MCB  MCB 7:59626 ¼ kN m 34:1356

ð38Þ



¼



ð39Þ

  D      R 16:0514 152:033 MCD MCD þ c ¼ þ 0:11895 R D 8:02569 126:016  MDC  MDC 34:1356 ¼ kN m ð40Þ 23:0153 ¼

514

S. Pornpeerakeat and A. Chaikittiratana

Similarly, the correct axial forces Fij can be obtained by 8 9 8 9 8 9 8 9 < FAB = < 72:422 = < 260:052 = < 41:4888 = ¼ 47:023 þ 0:11895 315:239 ¼ 9:52515 kN F : BC ; : ; : ; : ; 51:523 118:279 65:5922 FCD

ð41Þ

The solutions obtained from the presented approach are compared with those reported in a well-known textbook [2] and obtained from the finite element analysis using SAP2000 [6] as listed in Table 1 and illustrated at the local element level as shown in the Fig. 13.

Table 1. Comparisons of the moments and axial forces Mij

Matrix equilibrium equation with stiffness matrix method (present) −31.2684 −7.59626 7.59626 34.1356 −34.1356 −23.0153 −41.4888 −9.52515 −65.5922

MAB (kN m) MBA (kN m) MBC (kN m) MCB (kN m) MCD (kN m) MDC (kN m) FAB (kN) FBC (kN) FCD (kN)

B

7.596 kN.m

7.596 kN.m 9.525 kN

√3 2

−31.268 −7.5963 7.5963 34.136 −34.136 −23.015 −41.489 −9.5251 −65.592

−31.3 −7.6 7.6 34.2 −34.2 −23.0 – – –

65.592 kN 34.136 kN.m

34.136 kN.m

9.525 kN

C

3.6 m 42.4078 kN

12 √3 1

Hibbeler [2]

C

B

7.596 kN.m 12.954 kN

30 kN/m

SAP2000 [6]

34.136 kN.m 9.525 kN

42.4078 kN

65.592 kN 65.592 kN

41.488 kN 34.136 kN.m 9.525 kN C

2 √3 1 √3 2

1 2 √3

1

12.954 kN

6m 12.954 kN

41.488 kN

D 23.0153 kN.m 65.592 kN

Fig. 13. Results obtained from the presented approach

9.525 kN

The Application of Equilibrium Equations Matrix with Stiffness Method

515

3 Conclusion and Recommendations In this work, a systematic approach for analysing member forces and moments in an indeterminate frame structure with an inclined member is presented. The solutions of forces and moments in a loaded structure are the combination of the solutions of two parts: (1) a loaded frame structure with the sidesway motion prevented by reaction force R and (2) a frame structure with sidesway motion and sidesway force RD. With this approach correction factors of member forces and moments are needed to be determined. In this presented work, the force equilibrium equations are derived in local coordinate system and expressed in terms of moments at members’ ends. Thus, the solutions can be readily determined in the local coordinates which are desirable for most design engineers. The stiffness method is utilized to calculate moments at each member’s ends and joints, which subsequently are used for forces calculations. From the equilibrium conditions, the correction factors can be determined for forces and moments and hence the corrected solutions are obtained. With our approach, the equations are expressed in the form of matrices which can be solved using a general spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel [5]. This provides an inexpensive but yet effective tool for structural analyses in every level. The solutions obtained from the presented method are in good agreement with those reported in the well-known textbook [2] and obtained from the finite element simulations using SAP2000 [6]. Our approach can be easily applied to an analysis of a statically indeterminate structure with distributed loaded inclined members which can be a complicated task for an approach that uses only global coordinate system.

References 1. Wang, C.K.: Indeterminate Structural Analysis. McGraw-Hill, New York (1983) 2. Hibbeler, R.C.: Structural Analysis, 6th edn. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (2006) 3. Kassimali, A.: Structural Analysis, 4th edn. Cengage Learning, Boston (2011) 4. Weaver, W.J., Gere, J.M.: Matrix Analysis of Framed Structures, 3rd edn. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York (1990) 5. Pornpeerakeat, S.: The use of Microsoft Office Excel for teaching of structural mechanics. In: The 20th National Convention on Civil Engineering, 8–10 July 2015, Chonburi, Thailand, No. 59. CEE (2015) 6. SAP2000V18, Structural Analysis Program. Computers and Structures, Inc., Berkeley

Student Engagement Through Community Building Making the Case for a Team-Based Approach to Learning Physics Teresa L. Larkin(&) Department of Physics, American University, Washington, DC, USA [email protected]

Abstract. This paper provides an overview of a team-based approach to learning physics in a second-level course for non-majors entitled Light, Sound, Action (LSA) taught at XX University. Designed using a workshop format, LSA provides students numerous opportunities to learn physics using a number of interactive engagement strategies. These interactive engagement strategies provide the backbone for the structure of the course. Using a carefully crafted set of collaborative activities, students in LSA engage in a wide range of experiences in a team setting. Within these collaborative activities are strategies aimed at enhancing communication and building community within the classroom. Perceptions about the team-based collaborative activities in LSA will be presented based on the responses to a short survey sent to students who have taken the course in the past three years. One emergent theme based on these results is that the community-building, team-based activities used in LSA can serve to transcend the classroom experience and carry over into other domains. Keywords: Building community in the classroom
Collaborative learning Interactive engagement strategies
Team-building in physics
Workshop Physics




1 Introduction Within the professional fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), employers often seek out individuals with strong communication skills. In particular, the ability to effectively communicate and work in a team setting is a required attribute. If employers are looking for individuals with these skills, then perhaps a logical question is: where do these individuals acquire these skills in the first place? The logical answer to this question is that they most likely, in part, acquire these important skills in the classroom. Thus, providing students with opportunities to develop and enhance their communication skills using a team-based approach is important. Team-based activities have not always been perceived favorably by students. There are some caveats. For example, Zvacek notes that group work has a mostly welldeserved bad reputation among students [1]. She suggests that things such as an imbalance of contributions of individual team members and logistical issues such as © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 516–527, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_50

Student Engagement Through Community Building

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trying to find a common time outside of class to convene the group can all serve to contribute to this negative reputation. In addition, students oftentimes tend to feel that an activity or assignment that involves a group component serves as a significant threat to their individual control over their learning as well as over their grades. Following a brief overview of LSA, this paper will present an overview of the team-based approaches used in the course that have been designed to build community, enhance communication skills and augment student learning. These approaches are designed to alleviate some of the caveats about group work noted above while simultaneously allowing students unique and valuable opportunities to learn; and, more personally experience physics. Before describing the format of the LSA course and the associated collaborative activities, a synopsis of the relevant literature reinforcing such an approach will be presented.

2 Relevant Literature The importance and significance of an active learning approach has been widely discussed in the literature [2–7]. Active learning approaches can take on many forms. For example, in a traditional lecture setting, there are many ways to help learners be functionally active during class. These ways might include the use of student response systems (e.g. clickers). Short free-writing activities have also been shown to be very useful in terms of actively engaging students in the learning process [8]. Of course, in a typical introductory physics course, a laboratory component also offers opportunities for students to work in groups. However, and perhaps unfortunately, many laboratory activities are structured very rigidly and often arranged in a more rigid, cookbook-type format. In terms of a team-based approach, Sarasin suggests that it is important to be explicit about such things as organization, roles, objectives and goals [9]. One thing Sarasin emphasizes is that the strategies used to achieve the goals and objectives should be open-ended. An open-ended approach helps to ensure that the collaborative learning experience is positive; in part, because there is no single solution to a given problem. Multiple solutions also mean that different teams may use completely different processes in order to solve a problem related to a specific concept. By being given the opportunity to share the processes used by each team, students have an excellent opportunity to learn from one another. Through his analysis of several statistical studies involving thousands of students at numerous institutions of higher learning, Astin discovered that interactions with their peers and interactions with faculty members were two factors that had an impact on academic achievement, personal development, and overall satisfaction with the college experience [10]. He argued that cooperative learning may be more impactful than many of the more traditional pedagogical methodologies. Astin linked this enhanced impact to the fact that cooperative learning may provide more motivation for students to become active and involved participants in the learning process. Bean provides a number of suggestions for pedagogical strategies that can be designed to help students enhance their critical thinking skills [11]. These strategies include such things as providing opportunities for students to link course concepts to their personal experiences or prior knowledge and asking students to teach a difficult concept

518

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(s) to a new learner. Ultimately the goal is to design tasks that promote active thinking and learning. This type of approach is suggestive of the idea that peer-to-peer experiences can provide additional motivational tools to help enhance the learning process. Students, especially teenagers and young adults often feel a deep need to be part of a something larger than themselves. Active learning, team-based strategies can be instrumental in helping students connect meaningfully within a group. Kessler suggests that such a meaningful connection includes respect and care [12]. This respect and care in turn encourages authenticity for each individual member of the group. Over time, as individuals feel valued and safe within the context of the group, they become more willing to share differences of opinion, values, and beliefs. Team-based group activities can be a great opportunity for students to learn from their peers; and, to learn through teaching their peers. McKeachie suggests that there is a wide-range of evidence that supports peer learning and teaching [13]. In particular, he stresses the value of peer teaching. One can learn an incredible amount by serving as a peer teacher, especially in comparison to simply being a passive learner in a more traditional classroom setting. McKeachie further indicates that peer teaching works because it provides an opportunity for learners to experience mutual support and stimulation. These opportunities may also serve to strengthen the bonds and sense of community a team-based approach tends to foster. Citing several studies on the values of group learning, Barkley, Cross, and Major call attention to the fact that in peer tutoring, the students actually doing the tutoring often learn more than the students receiving the tutoring [14]. This is not surprising, especially for those of us who are educators. Many of us have had this experience, especially in our early years of teaching. In fact, many of us have had the shared experience of feeling like we only truly came to understand a concept after we had actually taught it at least once or twice. Outside of the classroom, much of the learning experience comes from interacting both professionally and socially with one another. By engaging with one another, individuals can acquire skills and expertise; and, use the tools and other resources that might be available within a given group setting and environment [15]. Interactive and collaborative activities within the classroom provide the important experiences that lend themselves to learning from one another and enhancing the sense of community within the group. Building a sense of community starts from the ground up. Redish highlights the importance of physics educators working together as a research and development community [16]. This is true for educators in the wider STEM community as well. He underlines the importance of working together in the same way that scientists in a science and industry sector work together Redish also underscores that as physics educators make use of the tools of science including observation, analysis and synthesis, we have more opportunities to understand how students learn physics. As a result of this increased understanding, educators are better equipped to make improvements in how we teach physics. The section that follows will provide an outline of the LSA course and an overview of some of the pedagogical approaches employed. A brief background of the typical student clientele will also be shared. A section dedicated to providing a general overview of the structure of the team-based, collaborative activities used in LSA will follow subsequently.

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3 Light, Sound, Action (LSA) LSA is a second-level introductory physics course for non-physics majors. Because of the interactive nature of the course and the involvement of a large amount of equipment, class sizes are typically capped at 18 students. Students typically enroll in the course to satisfy the university’s general education requirements for graduation. The original inspiration for the creation and design of LSA came from the Workshop Physics program developed by Priscilla Laws at Dickinson College [17]. By adapting the approaches used in Laws’ Workshop Physics course, LSA was designed and first implemented in 1999. At that time the course was entitled Physics for a New Millennium (PNM). Shortly thereafter, additional modifications and adjustments were made to the course using adaptations from Robert Beichner’s Scale-up model first implemented in introductory physics classes at North Carolina State University [18]. From 1999–2015, a first-level introductory physics course served as a pre-requisite for PNM. Because the PNM title had become quite outdated and because the course was geared for non-majors taking physics for a general education requirement, the course was rebranded and retitled LSA in 2015. As part of the rebranding, the prerequisite was dropped and students no longer had to take a first-level physics course in order to enroll in LSA. The argument for making this adjustment was to try to appeal to a wider range of students; and, because it was deemed that the topics in a typical introductory course could essentially be taught in any order without too much difficulty. The topics covered in the rebranded LSA course include sound and waves, electricity and magnetism, and light, color, and optics. The first-level course, no longer a pre-requisite, covered the standard topics in classical mechanics including general motion concepts, Newton’s Laws, conservation of energy and momentum, and fluid mechanics. While these topics are sometimes useful in the second-level course, the rebranding and redesign of the course included provisions to teach relevant first-level topics in LSA on an as-needed basis. The course has been taught in this redesigned format for the past 4 years with a good deal of success and a high level of student satisfaction. LSA meets twice a week in course sessions of different length. One day per week the course is taught during a standard 75-min lecture session. The second meeting spans a double block of time and hence meets for 150-min. During the 75-min class session, a number of pedagogical approaches are utilized that have been designed to foster active learning. These approaches include using a number of questions that are posed to the students using an electronic student response system (e.g. clickers). While students answer these questions individually, the entire class is actively engaged in class discussion as each question is asked, answered and analyzed. Oftentimes the instructor does things to make it more interesting for the students by offering very small physics prizes to the class if they get a challenging question 100% correct. As noted in the introduction, group work can sometimes be perceived negatively by students, largely because they tend to feel that it causes them to give up some control over their learning as well as over their individual grades. Carefully crafted group activities can still allow a learner to have control over their learning and their grades.

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Moreover, these activities can serve to enhance learner motivation and engagement. This motivation, as Barkley reminds us, serves to create a feeling of interest or enthusiasm that makes somebody want to do something [19]. This is exactly what we as educators want to happen in the classroom – we want our students to want to learn! During the double-block, 150-min class session students engage in a number of collaborative activities often simply referred to as collabs. The collabs have been especially designed for use in a team format and should not be confused with traditional laboratory activities that often culminate in the production of a written laboratory report. While there is a significant writing component to the course, students in LSA do not write lab reports. Each unique collab activity (or set of activities) has a different set of requirements and assessment measures vary depending on the activity. These teambased collabs will be discussed in more detail in the next section. Regardless of the assessment measure, students are always provided with prompt feedback. Pollack has argued that written feedback is important in terms of helping the students hit the learning targets [20]. Brookhart provides details on how to give effective written feedback to students [21]. These details focus on important items such as clarity, specificity, and where to actually provide the written feedback. The intent of the feedback is to be formative, thus helping students as they are actively engaged in the process of learning. When students are given feedback that they can use to improve, they can more easily see and understand that they can do it. Research suggests that in many classes students will experience feelings of control over their learning that are positive so that they’ll prefer constructive criticism over head-patting and generic comments (e.g. good job!). Brookhart argues that this control over learning is true self-efficacy. It is the foundation of motivation for learning. She also stresses that feedback can lead to deeper learning only if the students are given opportunities to make use of it. In addition to the collab activities, a written conference paper activity serves as a unique alternative assessment measure and replaces the final exam. Through this written conference paper activity, students are exposed to all aspects of researching, writing and presenting a paper at a formal conference held on the last day of class [22]. Students begin by receiving a call for papers and end with the submission of a cameraready paper suitable for publication. In addition, the students are provided with a very strict set of guidelines to be used for formatting their papers. Over the semester students have the opportunity to prepare an abstract, a first draft of their paper for instructor review, a second draft for peer review and a final copy that is published in a formal class conference proceeding. Within this semester-long activity, students have many opportunities to be actively engaged in the learning process. In the subsection that follows, an overview of the student clientele that enroll in LSA will be presented. The intent here is to illustrate the diverse range of backgrounds of the students that often take the course. 3.1

Student Clientele

A brief description of the student clientele that typically enroll in LSA is important to the over-riding theme of this paper. This theme highlights the use of team-based activities for not only learning physics but also for building community. Community building is so important in the professional world and yet a traditional classroom or

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laboratory experience rarely serves to enhance this element. In addition, because LSA is a general education course, students from all over campus can enroll to satisfy a portion of their general education requirements for graduation. Typical student majors include but are not limited to such areas as the visual and performing arts, audio production and technology, business, the social sciences, and communication. This wide range of student majors in and of itself enhances the diversity within the LSA classroom in comparison with a course offered strictly for physics or engineering majors. As a result, students in LSA are able to work with other students that are focusing on areas of study very different from their own. The next section provides a brief overview of the team-based collaborative activities developed for and utilized in LSA. These activities have been designed to strengthen communication skills, enhance and motivate deeper learning, and build community.

4 A Team-Based, Collaborative Approach to Learning Physics To supplement the learning experience in LSA, a set of carefully crafted collaborative learning activities, referred to as collabs, have been designed for use in the 150-min class sessions. These collab activities include the following topic areas: pendulum motion, sound waves, standing waves, electrostatics, electric circuits, electric motors, light, color, and optics. The time needed to complete each of the activities varies depending on the targeted learning goals. Some activities can be completed within a 150-min session while others might take more time. The time aspect will be discussed more completely a bit later in this section. At the start of each new activity, students are placed into teams using a simple random drawing. Students are instructed to draw a numbered block from a container and upon doing so they are paired with another student who has drawn the same number. Most activities are done in teams of two unless there is an odd-number of students. In that case, one team will have three members. Students remain with their team members until they complete a particular activity. New teams are randomly formed each time a new activity is undertaken. To make the formation of teams a bit more fun, one of the blocks in the container is a prize block so each week someone wins a small physics prize provided by the instructor. Students are only allowed to win one prize over the course of the semester. The instructor keeps track of the winners so that by the end of the semester, every student will have won a small prize. The prizes are often related to some of the physics concepts covered in class and drawing the prize cube has become a particularly valued part of the team formation process. One unique aspect of the 150-min collab sessions is that time is always set aside for a dedicated break. The collab breaks are similar in nature to coffee breaks that are taken during a professional conference. To that end, coffee and other beverages along with some light snacks are always available to the students during the breaks. An analogy to these break-time interactions might be discussions had during a coffee break at an actual professional conference. For many of us, these discussions have led to

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opportunities to discover new professional connections and collaborations which are so important in the real-world setting. Over the course of the semester, the amount of energy and synergy that exists between the students becomes very obvious not only during the break times, but during the collab sessions and the more traditional class sessions as well. It has been quite amazing to watch as the bonds and connections between all of the students get formed and enhanced – both in and out of the classroom. Some of these bonds and connections have even extended past graduation and in fact, in some cases have led to students obtaining internships or other professional opportunities. Since the student teams vary from activity to activity, so does the time needed to complete them. If the teams need a little extra time beyond the 150-min time frame, the activities are simply continued during the following week. Unique to the LSA collabs is the rule that if a team finishes an activity early, its members immediately take on the role of being peer teaching assistants (TAs). As peer TAs, these students are tasked with assisting the other teams as they work to complete the activities. Figure 1 shows a team of students serving as TAs for a collab involving electric circuits. The two students standing are the TAs and are working to assist the two students who are seated with a question they have about connecting a circuit. The overall use of the peer TAs in LSA helps immensely with the timing and ensures that each group has the time they need to complete an activity.

Fig. 1. Student TAs in action during an electric ciruits collab. (Source: Author photo used with permission of students shown.)

As the topics of the collab activities vary, so do the measures used to asses them. For some collabs, the students are provided with a rubric that outlines specifically what will be assessed. The students find these rubrics helpful as they work towards completing a given learning target. For other collabs, students are provided with alternative ways to formatively check their learning progress as the learning is underway. In the electric circuits collab activities, for example, the students complete a total of four circuits activities, each increasing in complexity. The activities often involve having

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students answer a set of carefully crafted questions, often open-ended, as they work through a given activity. For example, in the first circuits collab, students are learning to hook up basic circuits and are asked questions such as: What happens when you reverse the wires connected to the battery? Once the students are satisfied that they have achieved the learning goals for the activity, they individually complete what is termed a checkpoint activity. Every checkpoint is crafted to correspond to a particular circuits activity and provides students with a set of questions (both qualitative and quantitative depending on the activity) that allow them the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding. Once a checkpoint is completed the instructor does a quick check of the students’ responses and then allows the teams to move forward to the next activity. If the instructor feels that a problem or issue has emerged as a result of the responses to a particular checkpoint, additional time will be taken to bring the class together for a mini-discussion to address whatever the problems or issues are. This strategy has served to be very helpful in terms of assisting students to correct a flaw in their thinking formatively, while the learning is actually taking place. Important to note is the fact that no assessment measure used in LSA involves a student receiving a score based on a final assessment of the team. Over the past two decades, the instructor has made use of various types of feedback from students which has been used to inform modifications to various aspects of the course. To elicit more detailed feedback from students a ten-item survey focusing on aspects of the team experiences in LSA was constructed and sent to a set of students following the end of the spring 2019 term. The following section presents the two questions of focus for this paper along with a summary of the students’ responses.

5 Student Feedback Survey: Questions and Responses In May 2019, a ten-item survey was constructed with the goal of seeking student feedback about group learning in general; and, the team-based collab activities in LSA in particular. Because an individual LSA class is relatively small, the survey was sent to 25 students who had taken the course in 2017, 2018, or 2019. While survey responses are still coming in, a total of eight have been received at the time of this writing. Because the survey included several open-ended questions, and in the interest of space, a subset of two questions is highlighted in Table 1.

Table 1. Survey questions Number 1 2

Question What do you see as strengths and weaknesses of group work in an academic setting? The rule in LSA was that if a team finished an activity or set of activities before the rest of the teams, those team members were to become TAs. Did you ever serve in a TA capacity during any of our collab sessions? If so, what was your experience like? If not, feel free to share your thoughts about this concept

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The subsection that follow provides a synopsis of the feedback received from students to date. Potential emergent themes will then be underscored. 5.1

Student Feedback Synopsis

Tables 2 and 3 provide a look at some of the feedback received pertaining to the questions highlighted in Table 1. In the interest of space, some responses were shortened from their original version. Minor grammatical corrections were also made.

Table 2. Question 1 feedback Strengths involve learning about a different approach to solving a problem and having someone there to help you if you are unsure what to do. The biggest weakness is if other group members don’t care and you end up doing most of the planning and work yourself Strengths are that everyone can contribute their own ideas, and after the discussions, the team will get the best solution to complete the work. Because it is teamwork, a weakness is that everyone’s work becomes quite important, that is, personal mistakes are likely to cause the entire team to make mistakes In an academic setting it helps to promote delegation and accountability. It’s one thing to be accountable for your own grades, but to be partially responsible for someone else’s is a different type of responsibility You have to work with others in all aspects of life; therefore, learning to work effectively with others in school will help in every aspect of life. Weaknesses include the inevitable person in the group who does not put in the same amount of work The main weakness of group work is when someone does most of the work while others do little and ride along on the success of others It can be easier to get a project done if everyone is satisfied and comfortable with their role. However, when some members are slacking or don’t know the material, most of the work can fall on one person who does a disproportionate amount of the project A strength is the ability to make more friends and in the future we can help each other. Some group members do a lot of work because they want to get a good score. In the end, everyone gets the same score which is very unfair. Although some courses give opportunities to rate each team member, I don’t know the laz team members will get what kind of final score

Looking at the responses in Table 2, it seems clear that several students surveyed have had group experiences that have been less than optimal. Many indicated that it is possible to have a group member that does not carry their fair share of the work load, and hence this can cause other members to do a majority of the work. On the other hand, some students noted the ease and value of being able to learn from other members of the group.

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Table 3. Question 2 feedback Yes, I served as a TA. When I did, I shared my experience with my classmates so they could understand why their activities weren’t working and it made me feel good to do so. Teaching others how to do something helps me better understand the concepts The TA role given to students that finished early was truly something special. After all, if you learn something new, the best way to make it stick is to teach someone else about it! Finishing up a collab early and serving as a TA for others was a fun, team-building activity for me. I became closer with my classmates from helping them understand how to do the activities I think I only served as a TA once or twice. I know for sure once was during the static electricity collab. My experience was a great one! I just felt like I became a new member of other groups and shared the knowledge I learned within my own group with them. It also allows students to try out the other side of the spectrum. By explaining things to others, sometimes we gain even more knowledge of a subject because we have to look at it from different angles Yes, I have served as a TA several times. I was very happy to be able to help others. And the process of helping others also helps me to review and consolidate relevant physics knowledge. Additionally, I got a sense of accomplishment if other teams solved their problems through my help

As the responses in Table 3 reveal, many student respondents indicated that they had served as a TA in LSA and that the experience was very positive. What emerges from the students’ feedback appears to be two-fold. First, several students commented on the fact that they felt good about being able to help another team to solve a problem. Second, students felt like serving as a TA was also a good way to reinforce and enhance their own understanding of a concept. The following section provides a summary of the unique features of the collaborative activities used in LSA. Finally, some pedagogical implications will be provided that could be useful for others interested in creating new, or modifying existing, teambased strategies within their own physics or engineering classes.

6 Summary and Pedagogical Implications The workshop style of LSA provides an ideal format for the implementation of interactive learning approaches. A variety of collaborative learning experiences are used that provide opportunities for students to learn physics in a team-based environment. A number of alternative forms of assessment allow students to receive feedback formatively and while the learning is actually taking place. There is no use of group grading in LSA which alleviates the concern that some students have about lack of control over their learning and their grades. Unique to the LSA course is the use of a structured break time. These breaks serve to help foster the community spirit so important to the learning process. In addition, the short breaks serve to help students learn about the importance of networking through their interactions with their peers. Also unique to LSA is the use of peer TAs. Because many of the collaborative activities are open-ended, the time needed to complete them varies from team to team. When a team finishes an activity, they don’t pack up and go home. Instead, they are

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transformed into TAs and assist the rest of the teams still working on the activity. This is a win-win for both the peer TA as well as the classmates they are helping. The peer approach to helping others also serves to enhance and build community among members of the class. The peer approach may also serve to empower students as they see how the assistance they’ve provided to their classmates is constructive and useful. There are many bonuses that have arisen as a result of the positive experiences students have had in LSA. For example, some students are surprised to find that they actually understand and can do physics! This understanding often serves to motivate them to take additional physics classes. Some students have even used the experience as a springboard to a physics minor or even a physics major. In fact, two students in the spring 2018 class changed their major to physics, in part, due to their good experiences and excellent performance in LSA. Because of its focus on physics learning through active engagement and community building, many students have formed long-term relationships with classmates that extend well-beyond the classroom. In fact, during office hours, one student recently mentioned that when they are on campus and see students from other classes they don’t usually interact with them or even know their names. However, this same student indicated that when they ran into their LSA classmates outside of class they almost always stopped to engage in conversation with them. Sometimes this conversation was about physics and the LSA class, and sometimes it was about something entirely unrelated to physics. Based on informal discussions with other students it is clear that many lasting friendships have also been formed. The research on active and team-based learning supports the approaches used in LSA. Based on feedback from students, the team-based and community building elements have worked in tandem to help them improve their communication skills. Strong communication skills are something most students recognize as being critically important in the real-world, professional setting. The interactive pedagogies implemented in the LSA course provide evidence of how these elements can have a positive start in the classroom.

References 1. Zvacek, S.M.: Talking about teaching – does technology add value to your classes? Int. Soc. Eng. Pedagogy (IGIP) Newsl. (01) (2019) 2. Hake, R.R.: Active-engagement vs traditional methods: a six thousand student study of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. Am. J. Phys. 66(1), 64–74 (1998) 3. Cummings, K., Marx, J., Thornton, R., Kuhl, D.: Evaluating innovation in studio physics. Phys. Educ. Res.: Suppl. Am. J. Phys. 67(7), S38–S44 (1999) 4. Larkin, T.L.: The evolution of assessment within an introductory physics course. Int. J. Eng. Pedagogy (iJEP) 3(1), 39–48 (2013). https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v3iS1.2393. Kassel University Press GmbH, Kassel, Germany, Special Issue 5. Thornton, R., Sokoloff, D.: Learning motion concepts using real time microcomputer-based laboratory tools. Am. J. Phys. 58(9), 858–867 (1990) 6. Redish, E.F., Steinberg, R.N.: Teaching physics: figuring out what works. Phys. Today 52 (1), 24–30 (1999) 7. Van Heuvelen, A.: Overview, case study physics. Am. J. Phys. 59(10), 898–906 (1991)

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8. Kalman, C.S.: Successful Science and Engineering Teaching in Colleges and Universities, 2nd edn. Information Age Publishing, Charlotte (2017) 9. Sarasin, L.C.: Learning Style Perspectives: Impact in the Classroom. Atwood Publishing, Madison (1998) 10. Astin, A.: What Matters in College? Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (1993) 11. Bean, J.C.: Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, 2nd edn. Jossey-Bass (A Wiley Imprint), San Francisco (2011) 12. Kessler, R.: The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion, and Character at School. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria (2000) 13. McKeachie, W.J.: Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers, 9th edn. D. C. Heath and Company, Lexington (1994) 14. Barkley, E.F., Cross, K.P., Major, C.M.: Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. Jossey-Bass (A Wiley Imprint), San Francisco (2005) 15. National Research Council: How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. National Academies Press, Washington, DC (2000) 16. Redish, E.F.: Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite. Wiley, Hoboken (2003) 17. Laws, P.W.: Calculus-based physics without lectures. Phys. Today 44(12), 24–31 (1991) 18. Beichner, R.J., Saul, J.M., Allain, R.J., Deardorff, D.L., Abbott, D.S.: Introduction to SCALE-UP: student-centered activities for large enrollment university physics. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education, Seattle, Washington, Session 2380 (2000) 19. Barkley, E.F.: Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty. JosseyBass, San Francisco (2010) 20. Pollack, J.E.: Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria (2007) 21. Brookhart, S.M.: How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria (2008) 22. Larkin, T.L.: The student conference: a model of authentic assessment. Int. J. Eng. Pedagogy (iJEP) 4(2), 36–46 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v4i2.3445. Kassel University Press GmbH, Kassel, Germany, Special Issue

Time Analysis of Teaching and Learning Method Based on LOVE Model Athakorn Kengpol1, Nitidetch Koohathongsumrit2(&), and Warapoj Meethom1 1

King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected] 2 Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected]

Abstract. Thailand Higher Education is changing over the tradition teaching and learning method approach to the outcome based education. The instructors must redesign their courses in active learning for balancing the learner experience. The four main dimensions for assessment framework are learning (L), observing (O), visiting (V), and experimenting (E). These dimensions are grouped and named as LOVE model which can be classified for teaching and learning method to balancing the student learning experience. Time analysis of teaching and learning method based on the LOVE model is adapted to analyze 7 science courses from two universities: 2 graduate courses and 5 undergraduate courses. The results showed the percentage of teaching and learning dimensions are as follows. The “L” is at 38.31%. The “O” is at 55.03%. The ‘E” is at 6.67%. But the “V” does not appear during the lecturing. In addition, the consequences demonstrate that each course must be improved for the learner experience to complete the loop. The student can gain the learning experience when the four dimensions are offered to them. The LOVE model is the essential tool for learning experience assessment based on teaching and learning method. The performances of teaching and learning method are reflected by the LOVE dimensions. This issue encourages that the instructors should achieve the course objectives for transferring the immersive knowledge into the empirical experience which are increasingly transferred into the competency. Keywords: Time analysis experience


LOVE model
Teaching method
Learning

1 Introduction The development for a curriculum is one effort to reform science teaching and learning method, such as rigorous treatment of science-learning goals and use of innovative pedagogical approaches [1]. In addition, the curriculum design benefits to improve a student skills [2]. Similarly, instructors are expected to teach meaningful content that helps the students to meet learning goals in the context of authentic activities [3]. Successful implementation of such a curriculum requires attention for the students and instructors [4]. Therefore, the development for a curriculum is discussed in this study. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 528–538, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_51

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The Curriculum Development of Master’s Degree Program in Industrial Engineering for Thailand Sustainable Smart Industry (MSIE 4.0) project supported by European Commission aims to develop a magister scientiae degree (MSc) for industrial engineering aligned with needs of Industry 4.0. In order to attain this objective, the first phase of the project is dedicated to provide a comparative analysis of the current situation concerning the MSc curricula in Industrial Engineering offered in Thailand (Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Chiang Mai University (CMU), Khon Kaen University (KKU), King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB), Prince of Songkla University (PSU), Thammasat University (TU)) and European partner countries universities (University of Minho (UMinho): Portugal, Czestochowa University of Technology (CUT): Poland, and University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (UPB): Romania). The identification of the gaps between the real needs of the industry, the student needs and the actual offered curricula. The four different types of learning experiences: learning (L), observing (O), visiting (V), and experimenting (E) named as LOVE model are an outcome in the first phase of MSIE4.0, it is an assessment framework based on the customer experience model (4Es model) for the students educational experiences [5, 6]. There are four main dimensions in this framework, such as learning, observing, visiting, and experimenting. Moreover, each keyword consists of sub dimension [7, 8]. For example, the sub dimensions of learning terms are discussion, brainstorming, etc. In this study, the LOVE model is applied, the interested courses are selected to assess the teaching and learning experience. The times for teaching and learning in each dimension are unconsciously collected and analyzed. This study is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the concept of the LOVE model. Section 3 presents the materials and methods. Section 4 demonstrates the results. In the last section, the conclusions are discussed.

2 The Concept of the LOVE Model The LOVE model can be divided into four main dimensions, such as learning, observing, visiting, and experimenting as given in Fig. 1. Likewise, each main dimension also comprises sub dimensions. The details are as follows. 2.1

Learning

Learner is active method to achieve a new and enhanced activity for obtaining the knowledge, behavior, skill, or satisfaction. Learning may be occurred from education, development, teaching, or practice. There are several methods for learning style, such as visual learning, auditory learning, and kinesthetic learning [9]. For the educational part, the learning can be completed by various approaches, such as discussion, demonstration with exercising, class debate, small groups debate, simulation, problembased learning, programmed teaching, workshop, brainstorming, case study, online interactive learning, game-based learning, guided practical exercises, role play, assignments, and individual presentation.

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Fig. 1. The main dimension of the LOVE model [5]

2.2

Observing

This is a passive dimension for a student who gradually absorb the knowledge and experience by an instructor [10]. This dimension is instructor-centered. A lot of information is presented in the form of lectures or assigned readings. Thus, the students are received the information without the participation. However this dimension is accurately teaching and learning approach because it is not directed at individual the students, but all of them at once. For the educational part, the observed teaching and learning can be completed by various approaches, such as lecture, guided conversation, integrated or interdisciplinary teaching, showing video material, seminars conducted in classes, and live lecture from a remote place. 2.3

Visiting

This dimension is a teaching and learning method outside the classroom or different places for gaining the perception [11]. The visited teaching and learning method encourages the student to appreciate and understand concepts beyond the norms of the classroom. Thus, the students can obtain the knowledge based on direct experience [12]. They can apply their knowledge to actual case study. This teaching and learning method can be done by several techniques, such as field class, trip and excursion, domestic or overseas study tour, conference, and virtual simulation. 2.4

Experimenting

The experimental teaching and learning method is a popular approach for science or multidisciplinary because this approach is a form of experiential learning, it is distinct from rote or didactic learning [13]. Moreover, this approach focuses on the experiential activity [14]. The students are allowed to prove theoretical principles. However, the

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instructors can assist the students in the initial phase until the students complete all experimental procedures by themselves. There are guidelines to complete this dimension, such as project-based learning, laboratory classes, virtual laboratory, and simulation.

3 Materials and Method 3.1

Courses Selection

In this step, the graduate and undergraduate courses from industrial engineering (IE) program of King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB) and operations research (OR) program of Ramkhamhaeng University (RU) are selected to assess with the LOVE model. KMUTNB where is a leading technology university in Thailand was established from the cooperation between Thai Government and the Federal Republic of Germany. RU where has been established as the Government university is Thailand’s largest public university with open-door academic policy. The unlimited students can register to study without entrance tests. As the mentioned previously, the courses are selected from both universities to assess the teaching and learning experience using LOVE model. Two graduate courses which are Management Information Systems (MIS) and Design and Control for Industrial Production System (DCP) are investigated. One undergraduate course which is Total Quality Management (TQM) is also selected. Similarly, four undergraduate courses of OR program which are Introduction to Operations Research I (OPR2001), Production Planning (OPR3308), Optimization Theory (OPR4105), and Logistics and Supply Chain Management (OPR4305). The details of each graduate course are as follows. 3.1.1 Management Information Systems (MIS) This course is an elective course, it does not require any prerequisite courses. Instructors educate and refer to a computer-based system with the tools to organize, evaluate and efficiently manage departments within an organization. The students can gain the modern knowledge on the application of expert system, such as economic information system, information system planning, Information and Communication Systems, E-commerce, knowledge management, data warehouse management and data mining, decision support systems, and information system supply chain management. 3.1.2 Design and Control for Industrial Production System (DCP) DCP is an elective course. The prerequisite course is not necessary to take this course. The students can get the knowledge on processes that transform resources into useful goods and services. The course descriptions are designed the parts for an economic manufacturing system, reducing unnecessary processes in manufacturing, creating balance in a production system, line reducing bottle necks of parts in processes, organizing the smoothing process, and decreasing of production time. 3.1.3 Total Quality Management (TQM) TQM is an elective course of the IE program, this is not the prerequisite courses. The purpose of this course is to provide the act of overseeing all activities and tasks needed

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to maintain a desired level of excellence. The topics of this course are principles of quality management in industry, selection of tools and techniques for quality, quality function deployment, steps in planning and developing of quality in organizations. 3.1.4 Operations Research I (OPR2001) OPR2001 is a required course of the OR program, prerequisite course is the Calculus and Analytic Geometry II (MTH1102). The purpose of this course is to obtain the fundamental tools of operations research, such as linear programming model, simplex method, dual problem and sensitivity analysis, transportation problem, assignment problem, network analysis, and project planning with Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM). 3.1.5 Production Planning (OPR3308) OPR3308 is an elective course of the OR program, prerequisite course is the Inventory Theory (OPR3307). The purposes of this course are to provide the guidelines for industrial management with OR tools and apply them to the virtual case study. The contents of this course are forecasting techniques, aggregate planning strategies, inventory models, Material Requirement Planning (MRP), capacity requirement planning, just in time systems, job-shop activity, and scheduling and sequencing. 3.1.6 Optimization Theory (OPR4105) OPR4105 is an elective course of the OR program, prerequisite course is the MTH1102. The purposes of this course are to demonstrate the concepts of optimization, such as basic concepts of optimization, single variable analytical methods, multivariable analytical methods, and the application of optimization techniques. 3.1.7 Logistics and Supply Chain Management (OPR4305) OPR4305 is an elective prescribed course of the OR program, prerequisite courses are the OPR3307 and OPR3308. This course emphasizes skill and knowledge development in aspects of quantitative analysis, technology, and management in order to create the moral and ethical graduates with holistic business understanding and capabilities of data analysis. Learner can obtain the insightful perspectives on the application of OR techniques with logistics problems, such as application of logistics principles to supply, demand, and value chain management, purchasing and supplier selection, locating strategies, controlling material flow, measuring and improving performance, inventory management, material handling, transportation, and global logistics. 3.2

Time Analysis of Teaching and Learning Method

Time analysis which is a direct and continuous observation of an operation, using a timekeeping device is employed to analyze the time of each interested course. This approach concentrates on the time in the teaching and learning activities. The LOVE model is applied to observe and record the time required to teaching and learning in each dimension. There are 2,700 min to complete the courses. Each course is divided into 15 weeks, 180 h per week. The results of each course can be summarized and presented in a percentage by radar charts.

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4 Results and Discussions The purpose of this study is to assess the learning experiences of course which occur from inside and outside of classroom by the teaching and learning techniques. The dimensions of the LOVE model are applied to cogitate the teaching and learning time of each interested course, the times are collected from the start of semester until the final examination by incognizant observation. For example, the MIS’s teaching and learning times of all weeks are illustrated in Table 1.

Table 1. The teaching and learning time of MIS Subject: Management Information Systems (MIS) Week Time of teaching and learning dimension: minute (percentage) L O V E 1 23 (12.78%) 157 (87.22%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 2 72 (40.00%) 108 (60.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 3 63 (35.00%) 117 (65.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 4 51 (28.33%) 129 (71.67%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 5 57 (31.67%) 123 (68.33%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 6 89 (49.44%) 91 (50.56%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 7 81 (45.00%) 99 (55.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 8 34 (18.89%) 146 (81.11%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 9 75 (41.67%) 105 (58.33%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 10 52 (28.89%) 128 (71.11%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 11 49 (27.22%) 131 (72.78%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 12 98 (54.44%) 82 (45.56%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 13 93 (51.67%) 87 (48.33%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 14 118 (65.56%) 62 (34.44%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 15 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 180 (100.00%) Total 955 1,565 0 180 (35.37%) (57.96%) (0.00%) (6.67%)

Total

180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 180 (100.00%) 2,700 (100.00%)

It discovered that there are 15 weeks for lecturing. However, the teaching and learning times are different because the instructors disparate emphasized to teaching and learning in each dimension of the LOVE model. The observing dimension is taken the most important method. The learning dimension is taken the second important method. In addition, the visiting dimension is not applied to lecture in the course. Finally, the experimenting dimension is only adopted once by project-based learning method which is named student-centered approach [15, 16]. Afterwards, the total times of teaching and learning dimensions for the KMUTNB’s courses are computed and illustrated in Table 2. The total learning times are at 4,098 min. The total observing times are at 3,462 min. The outside classroom is not operated to obtain the real experience. Finally, the total experimenting times are at

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540 min. Moreover, the times of teaching and learning in the percentage are indicated by radar charts as illustrated in Fig. 2.

Table 2. The total times of teaching and learning dimensions for KMUTNB’s courses Degree

Course Total times of teaching and learning dimension: minute (percentage) L O V E Graduate MIS 955 1,565 0 180 (35.37%) (57.96%) (0.00%) (6.67%) DCP 1,602 918 0 180 (59.33%) (34.00%) (0.00%) (6.67%) Undergraduate TQM 1,541 979 0 180 (57.07%) (36.26%) (0.00%) (6.67%) Total 4,098 3,462 0 540 (50.59%) (42.74%) (0.00%) (6.67%)

Fig. 2. The percentage of teaching and learning time for KMUTNB’s courses

Likewise, the total times of teaching and learning dimensions for RU’s courses are calculated and illustrated in Table 3. The total learning times are at 3,239 min. The total observing times are at 6,841 min. The visiting dimension are overlooked to motivate the students as an active and immersive learners. Finally, the total experimenting times are at 720 min. The times of teaching and learning in the percentage are indicated by radar charts as illustrated in Fig. 3.

Time Analysis of Teaching and Learning Method Based on LOVE Model Table 3. The total times of teaching and learning dimensions for RU’s courses Degree

Course

Undergraduate OPR2001 OPR3308 OPR4105 OPR4305 Total

Total times of teaching and learning dimension: minute (percentage) L O V E 406 2,114 0 180 (15.04%) (78.30%) (0.00%) (6.67%) 928 1,592 0 180 (34.37%) (65.37%) (0.00%) (6.67%) 937 1,583 0 180 (34.70%) (58.63%) (0.00%) (6.67%) 968 1,552 0 180 (35.85%) (57.48%) (0.00%) (6.67%) 6,841 0 720 3,239 (29.99%) (63.34%) (0.00%) (6.67%)

Fig. 3. The percentage of teaching and learning time for RU’s courses

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Additionally, the times of teaching and learning methods for both universities are combined to compute the overall times and percentage which are indicated as illustrated in Fig. 4. It found that the learning times are at 7,337 min as 38.82%. The observing times are at 10,303 min as 54.51%. The visiting dimension does not appear on the teaching and learning processes. Finally, the experimenting times are at 1,260 min as 6.67%.

Fig. 4. The percentage of the overall times

The percentage of the overall times showed that each course must be improved for the learner experience complete the loop. The students can gain the richest learning experience when the four experiences are offered to them. From being a good observer, learner, visitor, and experimenter according to the results from [5–8].

5 Conclusions The LOVE model is able to evaluate the teaching and learning method in multidisciplinary courses for learning experiences. The times spent in teaching and learning can be synthesized to approximate the learning experience by the LOVE model. The lecturing elements also strongly reveal that the learning experiences occur during the practical lecturing. Similarly, the performance of teaching and learning method can be discovered by the times of lecturing. Furthermore, the LOVE model demonstrates the lack of attention on the teaching and learning in each dimension. The results from the LOVE model are convinced to implement the comprehensive lecturing methods according to the qualification of entrepreneurs. For the future works, this study’s guidelines can be applied to promote the characteristics of satisfying graduate or undergraduate courses. In addition, the risk assessment frameworks from Kengpol and Tuammee [17] and Kengpol, Tuammee and Touminen [18] are combined with the LOVE model to measuring the learning experience. Moreover, the concepts of standard

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criteria for potential and risk assessment by Meethom and Koohathongsumrit [19, 20] are utilized to develop a standard criteria for teaching and learning assessment. Acknowledgement. This research was funded by King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok Contract No. KMUTNB-NRU-58-05. This research was also funded by ERASMUS + Programme of the European Union, Project No. 586137-EPP-1-2017-1-THEPPKA2-CBHE-JP, and Grant Agreement Number: 2017-3515/001-001.

References 1. Krajcik, J., Mcneill, K.L., Reiser, B.: Learning-goals-driven design model: developing curriculum materials that align with national standards and incorporate project-based pedagogy. Sci. Educ. 92, 1–32 (2008) 2. Kerby, D., Romine, J.: Develop oral presentation skills through accounting curriculum design and course-embedded assessment. J. Educ. Bus. 85, 172–179 (2009) 3. Davis, E., Krajcik, J.: Designing educative curriculum materials to promote teacher learning. Educ. Res. 34, 3–14 (2005) 4. Coenders, F., et al.: The effects of the design and development of a chemistry curriculum reform on teachers’ professional growth: a case study. J. Sci. Teach. Educ. 21, 535–557 (2010) 5. Hussadintorn Na Ayutthaya, D., Koomsap, P.: Assessment of student learning experience with ‘LOVE’. In: 11th Annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference (IATED), Valencia, Spain (2017) 6. Hussadintorn Na Ayutthaya, D., Koomsap, P.: An application of ‘LOVE’ model for assessing research experience. In: 25th ISTE International Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering (TE), Modena, Italy (2018) 7. Hussadintorn Na Ayutthaya, D., et al.: Learning experience from teaching and learning methods in engineering education: instructors’ viewpoint. In: 13th International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED), Valencia, Spain (2019) 8. Nitkiewicz, T., et al.: The quality of education on workplace safety master studies-the issue of teaching methods. Syst. Saf.: Hum. Tech. Facil. Environ. 1, 661–669 (2019) 9. Gilakjani, A.P.: Visual, auditory, kinaesthetic learning styles and their impacts on English language teaching. J. Stud. Educ. 2, 104–113 (2012) 10. Kelly, D.L., Kolstad, C.D.: Bayesian learning, growth, and pollution. J. Econ. Dyn. Control 23, 491–518 (1999) 11. Bentsen, P., Jensen, F.S.: The nature of udeskole: outdoor learning theory and practice in Danish schools. J. Adv. Educ. Outdoor Learn. 12, 199–219 (2012) 12. Mccarthy, P.R., Mccarthy, H.M.: When case studies are not enough: integrating experiential learning into business curricula. J. Educ. Bus. 81, 201–204 (2006) 13. Miettinen, R.: The concept of experiential learning and John Dewey’s theory of reflective thought and action. Int. J. Lifelong Educ. 19, 54–72 (2000) 14. Healey, M., Jenkins, A.: Kolb’s experiential learning theory and its application in geography in higher education. J. Geogr. 99, 185–195 (2000) 15. Pedersen, S., Liu, M.: Teachers’ beliefs about issues in the implementation of a studentcentered learning environment. Educ. Tech. Res. Dev. 51, 57–76 (2003) 16. de la Sablonnière, R., Taylor, D., Sadykova, N.: Challenges of applying a student- centered approach to learning in the context of education in Kyrgyzstan. Int. J. Educ. Dev. 29, 628– 634 (2009)

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17. Kengpol, A., Tuammee, S.: The development of a decision support framework for a quantitative risk assessment in multimodal green logistics: an empirical study. Int. J. Prod. Res. 51, 1020–1038 (2016) 18. Kengpol, A., Tuammee, S., Tuominen, M.: The development of a framework for route selection in multimodal transportation. Int. J. Logist. Manag. 25, 581–610 (2014) 19. Meethom, W., Koohathongsumrit, N.: Design of decision support system for road freight transportation routing using Multilayer Zero One Goal Programming. Eng. J. 22, 185–205 (2018) 20. Meethom, W., Koohathongsumrit, N.: An integrated potential assessment criteria and TOPSIS based decision support system for road freight transportation routing. Appl. Sci. Eng. Prog. (in press)

Research in Engineering Pedagogy

Correlation Between Systems Thinking and Abstract Thinking Among High School Students Majoring in Electronics Aharon Gero(&), Aziz Shekh-Abed, and Orit Hazzan Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel [email protected]

Abstract. Many studies highlight the importance of systems thinking and abstract thinking among engineers, especially as part of the Industry 4.0 framework. The study described in this paper characterized the relation between systems thinking and abstract thinking among high school students carrying out projects that combine hardware and software. Thirty-six Israeli 12th graders majoring in electronics participated in this study. The students filled out an anonymous Likert-like questionnaire used for evaluating their self-reported systems thinking and abstract thinking skills. Additionally, the students took a multiple-choice test examining systems thinking and abstract thinking. The findings indicate a significant moderate positive correlation between the two abilities, both in the questionnaire and the test. This correlation may have both theoretical and educational implications. Keywords: Systems thinking
Abstract thinking
Electronics students
High school students

1 Introduction The main building blocks of the fourth industrial revolution are Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data [1]. Successful implementation of the Industry 4.0 concept requires, inter alia, to provide engineers with an appropriate qualifications set that includes systems thinking and abstract thinking skills [2]. Systems thinking deals with the ability to comprehend the interrelations and synergy between the system’s components [3]. Abstract thinking is the ability to focus on the details that apply to the current viewpoint, while temporarily ignoring the less significant details for that particular stage [4]. In light of their importance in engineering education, the possibility to develop these two skills separately at a relatively early stage (pre-university) has recently been examined [5, 6]. Although systems thinking and abstract thinking has each been characterized separately [7, 8], a possible relation between them has yet to be determined. The study described in this paper examined the correlation between systems thinking and abstract thinking among high school students carrying out projects that combine hardware and software. To the best of our knowledge, such characterization was performed here for the first time. The study’s theoretical contribution is in the quantitative characterization © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 541–548, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_52

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of the relation between systems thinking and abstract thinking. Practically, the findings may assist in developing educational activities to promote systems thinking and abstract thinking at both the high school and university levels. The paper begins with a concise review of systems thinking and abstract thinking. Further on, the study objective is formulated and the research methodology is described. Finally, the main findings are presented and discussed.

2 Systems Thinking and Abstract Thinking 2.1

Systems Thinking

Systems thinking has its roots in the General Systems Theory, stating that in order to understand a system, one needs to analyze the interaction between its components and cannot settle for studying the characteristics of each component separately [9]. Later, systems thinking was formally defined as a field involved with observing the whole, namely a scholarship which provides a framework for looking at the interrelations between system components [3]. Systems thinking applies to a variety of disciplines, such as science, engineering, law and management [10]. The importance of systems thinking has recently increased in engineering in view of the growing complexity of engineering systems [11]. Accordingly, their design requires one to take into account considerations that are not traditionally engineering related. In light of the assumption that systems thinking can be acquired [12], the literature suggests ways to develop systems thinking among undergraduate students [13] and even earlier [14]. This educational effort is being implemented to various extents, from specific courses that have the purpose of teaching systems thinking skills [11] to three-year training programs [15]. According to the leading researchers in this field [7, 16], the main characteristics of engineering systems thinking are: • • • •

2.2

Seeing the whole system beyond its components; Understanding the system’s function without requiring all of the details; Comprehending the interrelations and synergy between the system components; Taking into account considerations that are not traditionally engineering related, such as environmental, economic, organizational, etc. Abstract Thinking

Abstract thinking is a cognitive means for dealing with complexity [17]. Through abstraction, one can focus on the details that apply to the current viewpoint while temporarily ignoring the details that are less significant for that particular stage [4]. Abstract thinking is a central skill for engineers and scientists in general and for software engineers and computer scientists in particular [18]. Among other reasons, this stems from the fact that involvement in software requires one to examine a variety of subjects at different levels of detail [19]. An important concept relating to abstract thinking is abstraction level. Abstraction level can be defined as the degree of complexity at which a system or software are

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examined [20]. Thus, for example, the highest abstraction level is reflected in the system requirements as perceived by the customer. At this level, the system is looked at from a global viewpoint, normally without going into details. Several abstraction levels can be identified between this abstraction level and the lowest abstraction level where the attention to details is maximal [17]. In light of the importance of abstract thinking, many studies have focused on characterizing and developing this thinking among high school [21] and university students [22]. However, a few studies indicated a lack of correlation between abstract thinking and success at basic courses in computer science [23]. According to most researchers in this area [8, 24], the main characteristics of abstract thinking are: • Identifying the abstraction level suitable for a given step; • Moving between abstraction levels; • Analyzing a system or software from different viewpoints.

3 Research Goal The objective of the study described here was to examine the interrelations between systems thinking and abstract thinking among high school students. The following research question was formulated: what is the correlation between systems thinking and abstract thinking among high school students performing projects combining hardware and software?

4 Methodology 4.1

Participants

Thirty-six 12th grade students majoring in electronics at a leading high school in Israel took part in the study. The students had two years’ experience in performing projects combining hardware and software. 4.2

Procedure

During the school year, the students completed an anonymous Likert-like questionnaire used for evaluating their self-reported systems thinking and abstract thinking skills. Additionally, they answered a test examining systems thinking and abstract thinking. In the statistical analysis performed separately for each research tool, Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated between the systems thinking scores and abstract thinking scores. 4.3

Tools

The self-reporting questionnaire and test were based on the characteristics of systems thinking [7, 16] and abstract thinking [8, 24] of engineers, adjusted for high school

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students. Two engineering education experts and five electronics teachers highly experienced in guiding projects combining hardware and software validated these characteristics. Self-reporting Questionnaire. The five-level Likert scale, ranging between “highly agree” and “highly disagree”, consisted of 48 statements: 32 concerning systems thinking and the renaming 16 dealing with abstract thinking. Thus, for example, the statement “when I am involved in an engineering project, I am not interested in the components that I am not responsible for their development” indicates relatively low systems thinking, whereas the statement “when I am involved in an engineering project, I am able to analyze the software from the viewpoints of different users” reflects relatively high abstract thinking. The questionnaire was validated by two engineering education experts. The internal consistency of the statements that focused on systems thinking (Cronbach’s a = 0.745) and of those that concerned abstract thinking (Cronbach’s a = 0.770) was acceptable. A sample of the questionnaire statements is provided in Table 1 (systems thinking) and Table 2 (abstract thinking). Table 1. Self-reporting questionnaire: systems thinking (sample statements) Statement When I am involved in an engineering project, it is important for me to understand the overall picture It is important for me to have knowledge in engineering subjects that I do not study as part of my major (for example, if I major in electronics and computer science, it is important for me to have knowledge in mechanical engineering as well) When I am involved in an engineering project, I am not interested in the components that I am not responsible for their development When I am involved in an engineering project, it is important for me to understand how the component for which development I am responsible integrates into the overall product

Systems thinking High High

Low High

Table 2. Self-reporting questionnaire: abstract thinking (sample statements) Statement When I am involved in an engineering project, I am able to analyze the software from the viewpoints of different users When I am involved in an engineering project, it is important for me to be familiar with the project’s software requirements I am able to describe the software in detail It is difficult for me to explain software code to people who have no background in software

Abstract thinking High High High Low

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Test. The test focused on a system combining hardware and software. The system description is provided in Fig. 1 (verbal) and Fig. 2 (block diagram). The test, which was a multiple-choice test (one correct answer and three distractors), consisted of 18 questions, half concerning systems thinking and the other half – abstract thinking. The test was validated by two engineering education experts.

At a certain school, the principal requested the technician to install a system that permits the opening and closing of the school parking lot gate by dialing from a mobile phone. Each member of the school staff wishing to open the parking lot gate, would dial a certain telephone number and the gate would open by a 24V DC motor. After the gate opens, the system would wait for 10 seconds, and if it discovered through a proximity sensor that no one was going through the gate, the gate would close. Two position sensors would be installed in proximity to the gate. One sensor would signal to the system that the gate was completely closed, and the other sensor would signal the system that the gate was completely open. Fig. 1. Test: system description (verbal)

Fig. 2. Test: system description (block diagram)

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A sample question is given in Table 3. Table 3. Test: sample multiple-choice question A B C

D

What does the block diagram describe (Fig. 2)? The micro-controller rotates the motor in order to open/close the gate when dialing is received by the system or when the proximity sensor identifies a car crossing the gate The micro-controller transmits a signal to the driver to rotate the motor when dialing is received by the system or when the proximity sensor identifies a car crossing the gate The micro-controller rotates the motor in order to open/close the gate when dialing is received by the system or when at least one of the sensors (proximity or position) identifies a car The micro-controller transmits a signal to the driver to rotate the motor when dialing is received by the system or when at least one of the sensors (proximity or position) identifies a car

5 Findings 5.1

Self-reporting Questionnaire

Table 4 shows the mean score M, ranging between 20 and 100, and the standard deviation SD for systems thinking and abstract thinking as measured by the questionnaire. Table 4. Self-reporting questionnaire: scores M SD Systems thinking 75.83 6.60 Abstract thinking 75.14 10.24

Pearson correlation coefficient between systems thinking and abstract thinking was found to be positive, moderate and significant (r = 0.596, p < 0.01). 5.2

Test

Table 5 displays the mean score M, ranging between 0 and 100, and the standard deviation SD for systems thinking and abstract thinking as measured by the test. Table 5. Test: scores M SD Systems thinking 55.53 20.82 Abstract thinking 52.76 17.00

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Pearson correlation coefficient between systems thinking and abstract thinking was found to be positive, moderate and significant (r = 0.546, p < 0.01).

6 Discussion and Conclusions In spite of the importance assigned to systems thinking and abstract thinking among engineers [3, 4], each of these types of thinking has been characterized separately so far [7, 8]. To the best of our knowledge, the study described in this paper was the first to indicate a significant moderate positive correlation between the two skills. This correlation was obtained through two different instruments: a self-reporting questionnaire and a test. The correlation obtained might have theoretical as well as educational implications. Thus, for example, from the theoretical aspect, it is possible that both skills have a common cognitive mechanism. In educational terms, it is possibly correct to prefer programs that develop both skills simultaneously over existing programs that focus on each type of thinking separately. The main study limitations are: (a) the relatively small number of participants, and (b) the fact that the participants were high school students carrying out projects combining hardware and software. However, we feel that even a study of the current extent can have theoretical as well as practical contribution. The study’s theoretical contribution is a quantitative characterization of the relation between systems thinking and abstract thinking. From the practical perspective, as mentioned above, the findings may assist in developing educational programs to promote systems thinking and abstract thinking at the high school and university levels. These contributions are further validated by the extensive efforts invested in developing programs of this character, especially as part of the Industry 4.0 framework [2, 21].

References 1. Schwab, K.: The 4th Industrial Revolution. Crown Business, New-York (2016) 2. Spöttl, G.: Development of “Industry 4.0” – are skilled workers and semi-engineers the losers? In: 7th World Engineering Education Forum, pp. 851–856 (2017) 3. Senge, P.M.: The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Doubleday, New-York (1990) 4. Denning, P.J., Comer, D.E., Gries, D., Mulder, M.C., Tucker, A., Turner, A.J., Young, P.R.: Computing as a discipline. Computer 22(2), 63–70 (1989) 5. Gero, A., Danino, O.: High-school course on engineering design: enhancement of students’ motivation and development of systems thinking skills. Int. J. Eng. Educ. 32(1A), 100–110 (2016) 6. Lye, S.Y., Koh, J.H.L.: Review on teaching and learning of computational thinking through programming: what is next for K-12? Comput. Hum. Behav. 41, 51–61 (2014) 7. Frank, M.: Assessing the interest for systems engineering positions and other engineering positions’ required Capacity for Engineering Systems Thinking (CEST). Syst. Eng. 13(2), 161–174 (2009) 8. Hazzan, O., Kramer, J.: Assessing abstraction skills. Commun. ACM 59(12), 43–45 (2016)

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9. Bertalanffy, L.V.: General Systems Theory: Foundation, Development, Applications. Brazillier, New-York (1968) 10. Jacobson, M.J., Wilensky, U.: Complex systems in education: scientific and educational importance and implications for the learning sciences. J. Learn. Sci. 15(1), 11–34 (2006) 11. Frank, M., Elata, D.: Developing the capacity for engineering systems thinking (CEST) of freshman engineering students. J. Syst. Eng. 8(2), 187–195 (2005) 12. Chen, D., Stroup, W.: General system theory: towards a conceptual framework for science and technology education for all. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. 2(3), 447–459 (1993) 13. Gero, A.: Enhancing systems thinking skills of sophomore students: an introductory project in electrical engineering. Int. J. Eng. Educ. 30(3), 738–745 (2014) 14. Ben-Zvi Assaraf, O., Orion, N.: Development of system thinking skills in the context of earth system education. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 42(5), 518–560 (2005) 15. Gero, A., Zach, E.: High school programme in electro-optics: a case study on interdisciplinary learning and systems thinking. Int. J. Eng. Educ. 30(5), 1190–1199 (2014) 16. Richmond, B.: Systems thinking: critical thinking skills for the 1990s and beyond. Sys. Dyn. Rev. 9, 113–133 (1993) 17. Kramer, J., Hazzan, O.: The role of abstraction in software engineering. In: 28th International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 1017–1018 (2006) 18. Devlin, K.: Why universities require computer science students to take math. Commun. ACM 46(9), 37–39 (2003) 19. Liskov, B., Guttag, J.: Abstraction and Specification in Program Development. MIT Press, Cambridge (1986) 20. Tsui, F., Gharaat, A., Duggins, S., Jung, E.: Measuring levels of abstraction in software development. In: International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, pp. 466–469 (2011) 21. Grover, S., Pea, R.: Computational thinking in K–12: a review of the state of the field. Educ. Res. 42(1), 38–43 (2013) 22. Koppelman, H., van Dijk, B.: Teaching abstraction in introductory courses. In: 15th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, pp. 174–178 (2010) 23. Bennedssen, J., Caspersen, M.E.: Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning computing science? In: Fourth International Workshop on Computing Education Research, pp. 15–26 (2008) 24. Ye, N., Salvendy, G.: Expert-novice knowledge of computer programming at different levels of abstraction. Ergonomics 39(3), 461–481 (1996)

Measuring Students’ Device Specific Competencies Using an Eye-Tracking Study on Oscilloscopes Mesut Alptekin and Katrin Temmen(&) University of Paderborn, Warburgerstr. 100, 33098 Paderborn, Germany {mesut.alptekin,katrin.temmen}@upb.de

Abstract. At the University of Paderborn, a sophisticated Augmented Reality (AR) based application is being developed to help students acquire and deepen practical skills in dealing with electro-technical laboratory equipment. However, evaluating students’ motoric competencies while handling different laboratory devices is a challenging task. Currently, there is less work being done for an objective way to compare or evaluate students’ experimental skills. Hence, we propose an eye-tracking study in this paper with different students and laboratory engineers to identify characteristics in the scanpaths, allowing to draw conclusions from their experimental skills. Firstly, a brief introduction to the project’s context and some theoretical background are given, i.e. known characteristics of experts vs. beginners. In the next step, the task with the oscilloscope is described, which has to be solved by the group of experts (laboratory engineers) and the beginners (first semester students), who have never worked with laboratory devices before. The measured eye-tracking data is presented with respect to fixation times, areas of interest and scanpaths to identify characteristics in the measured data. It turns out that a purely quantitative analysis of the gaze data in this experiment is not very meaningful but should always be verified together with the respective solution strategy, since different solution strategies may evidently lead to similar gaze behaviors. Keywords: Eye-tracking Engineering education


Augmented Reality
Laboratory training


1 Introduction 1.1

Motivation

Eye-tracking has become a popular methodology (inspection method) not only in industry, e.g. in product or user interface designing, but also in many fields of research. Modern eye-trackers can record very accurately which objects were viewed in which order, at what time and for how long. Hereby, the thinking processes and task-solving strategies of the participants can be concluded. Likewise, eye-trackers may be used to investigate the distinctions between expert and novice users when solving tasks in different fields. By performing pre- and post-tests with eye-tracking, it is possible to © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 549–565, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_53

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evaluate the efficacy of learning scenarios, once the underlying characteristics of tasksolving strategies between expert and novice users have been appraised. The objective of this paper is to carve out the characteristic features in the scanpath of students having no previous experience in dealing with laboratory equipment and laboratory engineers in an eye-tracking study. Consequently, not only can a learning progress be derived after an intervention, but the students’ pre-existing knowledge can also be concluded from the gaze data. 1.2

Background of this Research

A general problem with laboratory trainings is the existing lack of the students’ operation skills required for handling the electro-technical laboratory equipment. Therefore, the department of Teaching Technology at the University of Paderborn has been investigating innovative forms of teaching and learning environments, wherein students will be able to acquire practical skills to operate and handle laboratory equipment, irrespective of time or local constraints. The results of this eye-tracking research serve as a basis to measure and assess the learning effectiveness of the new learning environment at a later stage.

2 Theoretical Foundations 2.1

Assumptions for Eye-Tracking

The two key assumptions for eye-tracking research can be traced back to Just & Carpenter in 1976, called the Eye-Mind-Hypothesis [1]. The first basic assumption is that from fixations it can be deduced what the subject “is doing cognitively at the moment” [2, 3]. This assumption is supported by many empirical studies [1] but does not necessarily imply that cognitive and visual focus will match, i.e. when closing one’s eyes or staring at the sky when being deep in thought [4]. Secondly, the fixation duration of an area corresponds to the duration of cognitive examination of the content or object [5, 6]. Again, there are studies proving this assumption, but from daily practice it is suggested that this does not have to be compelling, i.e. fixing one point for a longer period of time when lost in thoughts [3]. These assumptions must be taken into account when analyzing eye-tracking data and interpreting the results thereof. In addition to the above assumptions, the definition of the fixation duration plays a crucial role when interpreting the results. So far, there is no uniform definition of how long a fixation should take in order to be interpreted as such and to be distinguished from micro-movements. For instance, some studies on reading define a fixation as a pupillary rest of 50 ms, while other studies, such as viewing images, consider a relative rest of 300–400 ms as a fixation [7]. In this work, like in most other studies, a fixation of 200 ms is being assumed [8].

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Operation and Systems of Eye-Tracking

There are various technologies and systems for eye-tracking which differ in terms of invasiveness and accuracy [9]. It is quite obvious that the lower the invasiveness of an eye-tracking system, the higher the degree of freedom and hence the naturalness for the subject will be. However, this freedom comes with a lower validity of results, since e.g. head movements distort the measurement. High invasiveness allows replicability of the results, since less disruptive factors are included. The most popular and widespread way for eye-tracking is the cornea reflex method [10, 11]. By illuminating the eye with infrared light, a camera can record reflections on the pupil and calculate the relative vector of the reflex position and the center of the pupil [9]. To establish a link between the eye position, the receiver and the environment, the system must be calibrated before being used (see Sect. 3.5). There are two types of devices using this method, i.e. the remote eye-tracker and the head-mounted tracker [12]. In this study, a head-mounted tracker from the Pupil Labs is applied. The test subjects are required to wear glasses with two cameras on the stirrup; one camera detects the IR-reflections of the eyes while the second camera records the surroundings from the participants’ perspective. Such systems exert no disturbance on the subject’s movement, yet they may be uncomfortable and reminiscent for the participants of the study [9]. 2.3

Areas of Interest (AOI)

For analyzing eye-tracking data, it is useful to divide the test-object into areas of interest (AOI). There are two ways for breaking a test-object into AOIs; (1) grid-like and (2) semantic AOIs. Semantic AOIs are used for objects having distinct and semantically related regions, for example HTML websites in areas such as header, navigation, footer etc. This applies also to the oscilloscope with specific areas for scaling, triggering, measuring etc. The shape of the AOIs can be freely chosen according to the application, e.g. circles, ellipses, diamonds, etc. Furthermore, it is possible to overlap the AOIs creating Sub-AOIs. A “whitespace AOI” can be defined, unless a defined AOI is considered [12]. The most common metrics for analyzing AOIs are gazes (or dwells), which always refer to a specific AOI and represent the sum of all fixations in the same AOI. The dwell time is the total time of a fixation duration and saccade duration in this AOI. The proportion of time (in %) may indicate the importance of an area. However, there are two possible interpretations for this, i.e. (1) user oriented perspective indicating difficulties in the specific area and (2) object oriented perspective highlighting areas of great interest [8, 13]. According to Fitts et al. 1950, the duration reflects the difficulty of information extraction, while the frequency reveals the importance of an area, i.e. that important areas are fixated more frequently [14, 15]. However, since the same data with many metrics can be interpreted in different manners, it is prevalent to combine eye-tracking data with other methodologies, e.g. surveys, loud-thinking, post-interviews or recorded monitoring [16].

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Characteristics Between Expert and Novice

The main focus of research is on performance differences between experts and novices and how these can be explained [17, 18]. Two fundamental approaches are considered here; (1) the expertise as an inherent talent and (2) the expertise which can be developed [19]. There are various definitions of the term “expert”, but they all have in common the delimitation to novice [20]. Furthermore, there is no clear distinction between experts and novices, but rather different facets and levels of competence, e.g. the five levels of competence according to Dreyfus (Dreyfus model) [21]. In this work, we propose the definition according to the Conference of the Ministers of Education in Germany (KMK). In accordance with such, experts can be defined as individuals being capable of “solving tasks and problems in a goal-oriented, appropriate, methodical and independent manner and to assess the result” [22]. Accordingly, this category includes all laboratory engineers being directly involved in the implementation and supervision of laboratory training. In addition to this criterion, a guided interview was applied to assess the suitability of each person as an expert. A similar interview was also conducted with students. However, there were two categories here; Firstly, electrical engineering students in the first or second bachelor semester without any laboratory training were classified as novice. Other students from higher semesters having passed the laboratory training and yet assessing themselves to be novices were classified as intermediate, since - to some degree - they were supposed to have certain pre-knowledge with laboratory devices.

3 Experiment 3.1

Device

The data quality highly depends on the applied hardware and software, e.g. the sampling rate of the eye-tracker used. In this study, an open source and open hardware based eyetracker from the Pupil Labs was employed1. It should be noted here that the accuracy is defined as 0.82°. The accuracy is a metric for how precisely the fixation can be tracked [23]. This is important when small objects, such as the scope’s user-interface or objects at a distance are analyzed. For example, when the fixations on a computer monitor from a distance of 60 cm are tracked with an eye-tracker having an accuracy of 1.8°, the mistake will be 1.9 cm. However, if the fixations are tracked on a television at a distance of 3.5 m, the accuracy will be reduced to 11 cm [16]. In contrast, the precision of an eyetracker describes the variation with tracking of stationary points [24, 25]. 3.2

Test Subjects

As described in Sect. 3.5, a short guided interview was conducted to verify the suitability for this study. However, the participants were required to exhibit further

1

For further details and device specification, please refer to the project website https://pupil-labs.com/ store/.

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characteristics as well to achieve the best results when conducting the study. For example, it was important that they did not wear any glasses or contact lenses, since this highly reduces the data quality. Hereby, the total number of participants was lowered from 23 to 17. The following overview represents the most important information obtained from the remaining participants, i.e. their level of knowledge regarding oscilloscopes and the category (beginner, intermediate, expert) they were classified in. Table 1. Remaining participants for evaluation (4 experts, 3 intermediate, 3 novice)

sid

knowledge

time

gender

S1 S3 S8 S9 S4 S5 S6 S2 S7 S10

5 5 5 5 3 3 3 1 1 1

0:05:01 0:05:02 0:03:22 0:04:49 0:05:01 0:05:02 0:05:01 0:05:02 0:05:05 0:05:02

m m m m m m m f m f

age 40 38 31 34 26 27 28 20 22 19

occupation lab engineer lab engineer lab engineer lab engineer student student scientific assistant student student student

dataQuality 5 4 5 4 4 4 4 5 4 4

expert intermediate novice

Despite previous sample-measurements for offset-correction, hints and other precautions, the quality of 7 recordings was too low to be considered for further analysis. This is for example due to the fact that the test person had excessive head movements, mascara on long lashes etc. It also occurred that pupil recognition diminished with time for some seconds or minutes, for example because of dry eyes leading to changed reflection behavior of the IR light. A consistently high recording quality was found with only 4 subjects, while the remaining 7 subjects had some dropouts during the recording. Finally, a list of 3 beginners, 3 intermediate students and 4 experts (see Table 1) was available for further evaluation. 3.3

Room

The study was conducted in a laboratory room, which was darkened, so that there was no influencing sunlight likewise affecting the data quality. Furthermore, the interior was designed with “low-stimulus” to avoid systematic mistakes caused by disturbances. The following image shows the examination room during the test (see Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1. Examination room with recording device

3.4

Task

For the task, a function generator with the following properties was pre-set and hidden from the participant; frequency: 2480 Hz, amplitude: 2.48 Vpp, signal-type: sinus wave. This function generator was connected to the input channel of the oscilloscope and adjusted at a distance such that the signal was not in the visible screen range. The subject’s task was to visualize this signal by using the correct settings on the oscilloscope and to determine the signal parameters. For exact values, the measurement functions of the oscilloscope could be used. The task ended either with the solution, i.e. determination of the values, or after the processing time of five minutes had elapsed. This should ensure high comparability in the data, since different examination times will inflict eye strain and hence pupil detection as well as divergent results in scanpath analysis. 3.5

Procedure and Recording

Each study had to follow a strict procedure to ensure equal test conditions. In the first part, this implied the introduction to the study with motivation, the task and time for solving as well as general hints, e.g. no head movements during calibration etc. Then, the calibration itself was performed for each participant on a large paper screen with nine covered markers. After calibration, a sample stimulus with other markers was presented to measure possible systematic mistakes (precision mistakes), which, in turn, could be corrected after the test. When removing the calibration paper wall revealing the oscilloscope and flipping the spreadsheet, the examination was started. As mentioned before, the participants had a maximum of five minutes to read and solve the task with the

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oscilloscope. During the examination, unusual behavior or occurrences in observed eyetracking data were recorded (see Fig. 1) and discussed furthermore with each participant in a post-interview. The participant was also questioned about the solving-strategy for possible future evaluation. After each participant, the scope was reset and the signal rescaled and moved, so that it was not visible on the screen anymore.

4 Results 4.1

Data Preparation

The following sequencing visualizes the procedure for data extraction and export (Fig. 2).

dismiss for evaluation

low

check data quality

high

offset correction marker adjustment and normalizing coordinates definition of subAOIs calculation of fixation in each subAOI

calculation of total fixation in each subAOI

generating “full string” from scanpath

generating AOI-Time graph

generating heatmap graph similarity algorithm Levenshtein difference algorithm

Needleman-Wunsch similarity algorithm

basic scoring scheme

custom scoring matrix

string alignment

Fig. 2. Sequencing for data preparation and extraction

First of all, the AOIs on the scope needed to be calculated. For this, the attached markers formed a single AOI, the whole scope having a normalized coordinatingsystem. In the next step, this single AOI had to be divided programmatically and according to the functions and scope’s user interface into Sub-AOIs with a unique character for each region (see Fig. 3): A = display, B = vertical/voltage control knobs, C = trigger functions, D = horizontal/frequency control knobs, E = cursor measurement knobs, F = everything else. There are two ways of representing the strings: the collapsed and the full string. By defining a fixation as a relative static eye-position of 200 ms and a longer fixation on an AOI, the same character is added to the string

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according to the number of fixations in this AOI. Yet, for analyzing or comparing the scanpath irrespective of the duration in each AOI, it is only relevant to know the sequences between each AOI. Thus, the same characters were reduced to a single one, creating a “collapsed string” from the full string.

Fig. 3. Marker adjustment, normalizing coordinates and definition of Sub-AOIs

In the next step, a first graphical evaluation of the data was carried out by means of two Python scripts. In the former, a heat map was generated from the frequency distribution of fixations on the oscilloscope. Similar to thermal cameras, this shows in red the areas on the oscilloscope having been fixated most frequently for the longest time. The second script is a graphical representation of the AOI over time. At each framerate, a bar was created at the respective AOI with a width of the total fixation duration during that period of time. 4.2

Heat Map

There is not much information available that can be derived from the graphical results of the heat maps. First of all, it is noticeable that all subjects, both beginners and experts, have a very long viewing time on the oscilloscope screen (see Fig. 4). This is also understandable, since it has a special significance of about 50% of the entire oscilloscope and, ultimately, all changes or button-actions are visualized here. Nevertheless, a tendency can be foreseen in which beginners also pay relatively great attention to the scope’s buttons and functions. This is due to the circumstance that, unlike the experts, they first have to familiarize themselves with the oscilloscope and “get to know” the individual functions, whereas the orientation of the experts is relatively low due to previous experience with comparable devices. In the interview, many novice participants stated that their attention was first attracted by the glowing buttons, as they gave them a special meaning and tried to understand them. As mentioned before, the total time on the screen is significantly high for most expert users, while this is different for novice or average users and depends on their solution strategy (see next Sect. 4.3).

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Fig. 4. Heat map of an expert (S2 - left) and novice participant (S7 - right)

4.3

AOI-Time Map

At a first glance, no clear distinctions of the AOI-time map of the subject groups can be established. By adding the interview and observation data, though, the gaze data can be brought in line with the solution strategies and some characteristics in the data can be determined. Firstly, it is noticeable that the experts look much longer on the display and only briefly and quickly fix the controls (high frequency viewing on the functions area). This is due to the fact that fixations on the control buttons are mainly for searching and serve for orientation with the oscilloscope (see Fig. 5 - S8 and S9). They are less focused on understanding the individual function keys (which are already known), but rather wish to solve the required task. Particularly the AOI-time map of participant S8 is noteworthy. Not only is he outstanding because of the short time required for solving the task, but also for knowing exactly which settings he had to adjust on the scope. In the post-interview, he stated that even though the oscilloscope model was new to him, he quickly got acquainted with the user interface from previous experiences. Accordingly, from his graph it can be seen that his gaze was rarely directed to the scope’s functions. For students already having prior experience with oscilloscopes from previous laboratory training, there is a relatively long retention time on each of the individual AOIs (see Fig. 5 S6). The result is similar to that of novice participants, although this is also dependent on the respective solution strategy. Other studies also found similar characteristics, the explanation for this not always being unambiguous though. When comparing the results of examinations on reading behavior, in which a longer fixation points to possible difficulties in understanding the text (e.g. [9]), then difficulties with the buttons could be assumed likewise. Therefore, individual function buttons must be recognized and possibly brought in relation with prior knowledge. (This is quicker for experts, since the fast eye movements indicate an orientation with the device.) In fact, this assumption coincides with the interviews regarding solution strategies. For example, participant S7 stated that he looked for buttons or functions he was familiar with from other devices, e.g. calculators or from lectures. In contrast, the solution strategy of participant S2 was completely different from that of other novice users. She first invoked the help menu of the oscilloscope searching for possible solutions or hints. This is reflected in a relatively long retention time on the screen leading to a similar AOI-time map of expert participants, e.g. S9. Consequently, different solution strategies may result in rather similar eye movements.

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Therefore, no clear forecasting features can be derived allowing the diagrams to be assigned to the respective categories of users.

Fig. 5. AOI-time map of individual participants

4.4

String-/Scanpath Comparison

Levenshtein Distance Algorithm Initially, a similarity study of all strings was performed in order to be able to identify characteristics in the participants’ scanpath. For this purpose, the difference between the individual strings was examined with the Levenshtein distance algorithm. This so-called

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edit-distance-algorithm calculates the minimum insert-, delete- and replace operations of a string to match the second string. By defining costs for each operation, the problem can be transformed into a cost-minimum problem and solved mathematically. The lower the costs, the more similar the two strings are to each other. This result was used in a later step to perform a hierarchical clustering of the subjects (see Fig. 6). The closer the subjects are in terms of their scanpath, the shorter the branches are in the diagram. For example, in the first step subjects S8 and S5 were clustered to C1 and S1 and S6 to C2. These two clusters C1 and C2 were subsequently combined to C3, which in turn formed the cluster C4 with S4, etc. Unfortunately, no clear result could be generated from the clustering according to this algorithm.

Fig. 6. Clustering after the Levenshtein distance algorithm

Needleman-Wunsch Similarity Algorithm Also, the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm, which can also be used to compare strings, did not result in clear findings (see Fig. 7). While the Levenshtein algorithm indicates the difference between two strings (i.e., the smaller the difference, the higher the degree of similarity), the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm is a similarity algorithm, i.e. the larger the values, the more similar the two strings. The algorithm is based on the so called sequence alignment meaning that two strings are arranged by adding gaps, such that they have as many equal parts (sub-strings) as possible. For this purpose, the alignment score or similarity matrices are set in order to convert the matching into a costminimum problem. By adding gaps, the greatest possible match of substrings can be found. In this case, two equal letters lead to a reward of +1, adding a gap cost of −1, and a mismatch of −2.

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The following example illustrates the operation of the algorithm: Comparing the two strings “BIERGARTEN” and ERNW-ARTE (2...9) “STERNWARTE”, one realizes that these are fun|| |||| ER--GARTE (2...8) damentally different. However, by adding gaps, the greatest possible match of substrings can be found within both strings. With cost of −1 for a mismatch, 0 for a gap and +1 for a match, the total score for the two words is 6 (6 matches, 0 mismatches, 3 gaps).

Fig. 7. Clustering after the Needleman-Wunsch similarity algorithm

Needleman-Wunsch with Scoring Matrix Since the classical Needleman-Wunsch algorithm also failed to deliver a clear result, it was repeated with a scoring matrix customized to the object of investigation. By using scoring matrices, the similarities between the AOIs can be better replicated and consequently perceived/evaluated differently. This is applied, i.e. when they are semantically similar or, in this case, when AOIs are close to each other. In this case, the difference between region B and D was classified as low (cost = 0), since whether the participant is looking at the vertical - (B) or horizontal scaling (D) was not deemed important, as in both cases the scaling of the signal is intended to be done. Furthermore, the regions B, C and D all deal with the scaling or moving of the signal, while region E is for measurements or other analyzing functions (e.g. FFT of two signals). Hence, the cost for replacement is −1 and −2 for replacing with E, respectively. Moreover, regions B to E are “more similar” than A (cost = −3), since A represents the display, while the other AOIs represent the various control buttons. The “*” indicates the cost for adding a gap. The following scoring matrix shows the result of these considerations (see Table 2) and the clustering after its application with the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm (Fig. 8).

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Nevertheless, the result is similar to the previous algorithms with comparable clustering steps meaning that even this algorithm could not reveal any characteristics in the data. Table 2. Custom scoring matrix for the Needleman-Wunsch algorithm

A

B

C

D

E

*

A

1

-3

-3

-3

-3

-1

B

-3

1

-1

0

-2

-1

C

-3

-1

1

-1

-2

-1

D

-3

0

-1

1

-2

-1

E

-3

-2

-2

-2

1

-1

*

-1

-1

-1

-1

-1

-1

Fig. 8. Clustering after applied scoring matrix in Needleman-Wunsch algorithm

Pattern Matching However, the sequence alignment in the Needleman-Wunsch Algorithm revealed some interesting insights. By aligning different sequences to obtain the highest sub-strings, it shed light on certain patterns, which can be sought for in all strings. This is done by using regular expressions, which are special characters, e.g. “?”, “*”, “^” etc. to perform extended searches. For example, “*” indicates that the preceding character has to appear zero or repeatedly in the string, e.g. AB* (ABBBB, A, AB, ABBBBBBB all match this criterion). By combining different regular expressions, it is possible to perform pattern matching in all strings to identify typical or characteristic patterns2. From the results in Table 3, it becomes obvious that the patterns “CDCDCDCDCD” and “DCDCDCDCDC” occur in all strings with very high occurrences. However, this only indicates that there is a high viewing frequency on these 3 AOIs (vertical (B) and horizontal (D) scaling and trigger menu (C)), but it is not possible to give any causes for this behavior. As mentioned in Sect. 2.2, it might be that the AOIs are too small, so that with low accuracy of the eye-tracker, this leads to differences of several cm in the intended viewing point. Differences within Subjects In order to investigate how the solution strategy or the gaze path of a participant differs in the same task, several participants were recorded repeatedly. The first recording was performed when confronted with the new device, while the second one was recorded after a rough orientation with the device had already taken place. It turns out that the visual paths of the same subjects differ more than compared with other subjects. This implies that either the same person obviously follows a different solving strategy after first orientation with the device or it is only a coincidence or recording mistake. The sample with only 3 subjects is too small for making any general statements. 2

For further information on regular expressions, please refer to any web search on this topic.

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Table 3. Results of pattern matching within each group of participants and with all participants Novice Pattern

Intermediate Occurences

Sequences:

Pattern

Occurences

Sequences:

CDCDCDCDCD

3867 3/3

BCBCBCBCBC

5282 3/3

DCDCDCDCDC

3776 3/3

CBCBCBCBCB

5185 3/3

BCBCBCBCBC

2559 3/3

CDCDCDCDCD

4622 3/3

CBCBCBCBCB

2516 3/3

DCDCDCDCDC

4547 3/3

BCDCDCDCDC

60 3/3

BCDCDCDCDC

54 3/3

DCDCDCDCDB

54 3/3

DCDCDCDCDB

53 3/3

CDCDCDCDBC

53 3/3

CBCBCBCBCD

52 3/3

Expert Pattern CDCDCDCDCD

All Occurences

Sequences:

Pattern

Occurences

Sequences:

4982 4/4

CDCDCDCDCD

13471 10/10

DCDCDCDCDC

4873 4/4

DCDCDCDCDC

13196 10/10

BCBCBCBCBC

3995 4/4

BCBCBCBCBC

11836 10/10

CBCBCBCBCB

3909 4/4

CBCBCBCBCB

11610 10/10

BCDCDCDCDC

88 4/4

BCDCDCDCDC

202 10/10

DCDCDCDCDB

83 4/4

DCDCDCDCDB

190 10/10

CDCDCDCDBC

78 4/4

CDCDCDCDBC

182 10/10

5 General Discussion 5.1

Confounding Variables

Despite any assumptions to be taken into account in eye-tracking studies, the results of this study in particular can be generalized to a certain extent only. Although the information gained from the interviews could give additional insight into the measured data, there are still many confounding variables that cannot be neglected. For instance, one problem that occurs in many experimental studies in general and in eye-tracking in particular is the so-called Hawthorne effect. In alignment with this effect, the “natural” behavior of the test-subject may change when becoming aware of being part of a study. The participant may make assumptions about the research hypothesis and behave accordingly [26]. Wearing the eye-tracking glasses favors this circumstance as it causes unfamiliar body sensation and highlights the awareness of being part of the study [13, 27]. To prevent such problems, the interview and the introduction to the study deliberately highlighted an unclear goal. At the end of the examination the subjects received more detailed information about the goals and motivation of the overall study.

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Although head movements can be corrected technically during the examination when participants stoop down, e.g. to focus a little more on the scope, the so-called parallax error occurs. This is an inaccuracy in measurement caused when looking into depths. The tracker is accurate only at the depth level (distance) where the calibration was performed [28]. Although the subjects were requested not to make large head movements, these clues were forgotten once the subjects were “completely absorbed by the task”. The processing time also plays a crucial role. The longer the examination takes, the sooner the eyes become tired and dry, which severely affects pupil recognition. The processing time in this study was limited to a maximum of 5 min, which reduces such types of problems, but does not entirely avoid them. Other measurement inaccuracies arise from a technical point of view. Despite the high performance of the recording laptop, temporary overloads of the CPU were monitored, which consequently lowered the frame rate during recording. A lower frame rate leads to fewer measurements over the same period and is expressed in gaps in the measured data. In all cases, the problems led to temporary measurement inaccuracies or errors. If these e.g. occur in the middle of the recording, they are difficult to cut out. Irrespective hereof, these inaccuracies of measurement, whether being cut out or the wrong data being used for further investigation, will affect the outcome. In this study, no data was cut out, but when the periods of measurement errors were too excessive, the participant was excluded from further investigation. If only data with high quality are considered for the evaluation, there seems to be a system in the participant’s scanpath (see Fig. 9).

Fig. 9. Needleman-Wunsch Algorithm on participants with very high data quality

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Again, this might only be a coincidence. For sufficient certainty, further studies with more participants and different evaluations need to be performed in the future (see next Sect. 5.2). 5.2

Conclusion and Future Work

It turns out that a purely quantitative analysis of the gaze data in this experiment is not very meaningful but should always be examined in conjunction with the respective solution strategy, since different solution strategies will evidently lead to similar gaze behavior. Whether this is always the case needs to be re-examined in further experiments with a larger number of participants and higher data quality. In this study only a small part of data examinations was carried out. With the measured data other aspects, such as age or gender and its’ impact on gaze behavior, can be examined. Also, further quantitative evaluations can be carried out, for instance gaze plots. These are scanpaths of several participants on a single image facilitating easier data comparison. The Pupil Labs’ tracker allowed measuring further metrics, e.g. the number of blinks and pupil diameter change, which could not be analyzed in this paper and will be postponed for future work. These metrics may give greater insights to mental processes, since studies indicate that blink rates are sensitive to workload and task difficulty (e.g. [29]). Studies on pupil change (e.g. [30–32]) claim the pupil diameter to be an indicator for the participant’s mental load or fatigue.

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12. Heyen, F.: Gruppierung von Eye-Tracking-Daten mittels geeigneter Ähnlichkeitsfunktionen. Grouping eye tracking data with appropriate similarity functions (2015) 13. Blake, C.: Eye-Tracking: Grundlagen und Anwendungsfelder. In: Möhring, W., Schlütz, D. (eds.) Handbuch standardisierte Erhebungsverfahren in der Kommunikationswissenschaft, pp. 367–387. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden (2013) 14. Albert, W., Tullis, T.: Measuring the user experience: collecting, analyzing, and presenting usability metrics. Newnes (2013) 15. Bojko, A.: Eye Tracking the User Experience: A Practical Guide to Research. Rosenfeld Media, New York (2013) 16. Heinemann, B.: Planung und Implementierung eines Experiment Builders für Usability Studien zu blickbasierter Interaktion, 21 October 2016. p. 165 17. Bromme, R., Jucks, R., Rambow, R.: Experten-Laien-Kommunikation im Wissensmanagement, p. 13 (2004) 18. Huber, B.: Experten als Untersuchungsgegenstand: Definitionen und Forschungsperspektiven. In: Huber, B. (ed.) Öffentliche Experten: Über die Medienpräsenz von Fachleuten, pp. 23–39. Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden (2014) 19. Chi, M.T.H.: Two approaches to the study of experts’ characteristics. In: Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, p. 10 (2006) 20. Hoffman, R.R.: How can expertise be defined? Implications of research from cognitive psychology. In: Williams, R., Faulkner, W., Fleck, J. (eds.) Exploring Expertise: Issues and Perspectives, pp. 81–100. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London (1998) 21. Dreyfus, H.L., Dreyfus, S.E.: Künstliche Intelligenz: von den Grenzen der Denkmaschine und dem Wert der Intuition. Rowohlt, Reinbek (1987) 22. Kultusministerkonferenz KMK: Deutscher Qualifkationsrahmen für Lebenslanges Lernen. Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK), 01 August 2013. https://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/Dateien/ veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2013/2013_08_01-Gemeinsamer-Qualifiakationr-Anlage. pdf. Accessed 28 Mar 2019 23. Macinnes, J.J., Iqbal, S., Pearson, J., Johnson, E.N.: Wearable eye-tracking for research: automated dynamic gaze mapping and accuracy/precision comparisons across devices, bioRxiv, p. 299925, June 2018 24. Holmqvist, K., Nyström, M., Mulvey, F.: Eye tracker data quality: what it is and how to measure it. In: Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, pp. 45–52 (2012) 25. The Most Precise (or Most Accurate?) Eye Tracker. GfK Insights Blog, 18 March 2011 26. Döring, N., Bortz, J.: Forschungsmethoden und Evaluation in den Sozial- und Humanwissenschaften. 5. vollständig überarbeitete, aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage. Springer, Heidelberg (2016) 27. Komínková, B., Pedersen, M., Hardeberg, J.Y., Kaplanová, M.: Comparison of eye tracking devices used on printed images. In: Human Vision and Electronic Imaging XIII, vol. 6806, p. 68061I (2008) 28. Holmqvist, K., Nyström, M., Andersson, R., Dewhurst, R., Jarodzka, H., Van de Weijer, J.: Eye Tracking: A Comprehensive Guide to Methods and Measures. OUP, Oxford (2011) 29. Brookings, J.B., Wilson, G.F., Swain, C.R.: Psychophysiological responses to changes in workload during simulated air traffic control. Biol. Psychol. 42(3), 361–377 (1996) 30. Stern, J.A., Boyer, D., Schroeder, D.: Blink rate: a possible measure of fatigue. Hum. Factors 36(2), 285–297 (1994) 31. Hoeks, B., Levelt, W.J.M.: Pupillary dilation as a measure of attention: a quantitative system analysis. Behav. Res. Methods Instrum. Comput. 25(1), 16–26 (1993) 32. Wierda, S.M., van Rijn, H., Taatgen, N.A., Martens, S.: Pupil dilation deconvolution reveals the dynamics of attention at high temporal resolution. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 109(22), 8456– 8460 (2012)

Using Active Learning Methods Within the Andragogical Paradigm Svetlana V. Barabanova1(&), Nataliya V. Nikonova1, Irina V. Pavlova1, Rozalina V. Shagieva2, and Maria S. Suntsova1 1

Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 State University of Management, Moscow, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. This research paper is aimed at identifying the efficiency and at demonstrating the need for using active learning methods within the andragogical paradigm. Active learning methods intensify students’ thinking and are characterized by a high degree of interactivity, motivation, and emotional perception of learning process. Using active learning methods allows developing the cognitive and creative activities of students, enhancing the efficiency of learning process, and developing or assessing professional competences. This is exactly why the active forms of learning should be implemented in adult education to involve students in educational process as completely as possible and to activate the process of developing high-quality knowledge, including in the teaching person. Using active learning methods based on andragogical approach allows developing abilities in students, which the latter one would need later as graduates. Active learning processes also create conditions for developing critical thinking and demonstrating creativity. Keywords: Active learning methods paradigm


Engineering education
Andragogical

1 Context Today, researchers are highly interested in investigating the challenges of the contemporary engineering education, as evidenced by many international forums and conferences drawing huge amounts of scientists studying this issue [1; p. 41]. Following the implementation of the education continuity principle, changes occur in the nature of motivation and knowledge a person needs to have at each stage of his or her life [2, p. 1291]. The main issue of education is not the acquisition of the increasingly growing amounts of knowledge anymore. Now, education is focused on the problem of orientation within the increasing information flow, as well as producing the not-yet-in-existence knowledge, which a person feels a need for. Quick obsolescence of scientific information makes us search for the sources of new knowledge and develop the skills of using it independently in a real manufacturing or personally © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 566–577, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_54

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important situation. This is exactly why project-based learning gets globally spread: The projecting skills developed must promote timely adapting the professional to the changing production tasks. No economic development is conceivable in any country without the advanced training of technical experts or engineers capable of solving the innovative development problems and considering both the current needs and the anticipated demands of industry and of the entire society [3]. This implies the necessity of developing in would-be engineers a set of competences allowing them to set and solve new problems and to propose innovative engineering solutions.

2 Purpose In training highly qualified professionals meeting modern requirements, an important task is to ensure the high quality of education, keeping its fundamentality and fitting the current and anticipated needs of science and manufacturing practices. A modern professional must be a creative personality that can make sound, often nonroutine decisions in challenging situations, be ready for continuous self-education, have a systemoriented thinking style, and possess an ability to creatively self-develop. However, industrialists express their frustration regarding the training quality of the modern engineers, earmarking the inadequacy of their key competencies. This does not allow the university graduates to start performing their comprehensive engineering activities without a long adaptation period. Currently, the following contradictions characterize the Russian engineering education: • Between the expected outcomes of training the professionals in technical and technological areas and educational technology used at universities, which are inadequate in terms of training a competitive engineer; • Between the requirements set by employers and the training quality of the graduates that have completed engineering education programs; and • Between the possibility of using advanced educational technology and the increasing bureaucratic requirements for classroom organization and management. Seemingly, those contradictions can be overcome through applying active teaching methods, such as brain storming, case studies, problem-based methods, business simulation games, etc., that make students as close to their future professional activities as possible. Various active teaching methods are widely used at Kazan National Research Technological University (KNRTU). Andragogical paradigm can be defined as the theory of educating adults, which provides scientific grounds for the activities of those who learn and those who teach to determine the goals, purposes, contents, forms, and methods of training, as well as to organize, process, and implement the process of training adult people.

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3 Approach This research paper is aimed at identifying the efficiency and at demonstrating the need for using active learning methods within the andragogical paradigm. Active learning methods intensify students’ thinking and are characterized by a high degree of interactivity, motivation, and emotional perception of learning process. Using active learning methods allows developing the cognitive and creative activities of students, enhancing the efficiency of learning process, and developing or assessing professional competences. This is exactly why the active forms of learning should be implemented in adult education to involve students in educational process as completely as possible and to ensure exchanging high-quality knowledge.

4 Actual Outcomes In this research paper, we used the discussion method represented as questionnaires to assess the efficiency of active learning methods. Questionnaire means a survey performed in writing. A set of structurally organized questions (questionnaire) is used for that purpose. The advantage of this method consists in the possibility of studying a larger group of people simultaneously. Comparatively easy statistical data processing is another benefit. Upon completion of the training course, students are invited to fill out a form consisting of 16 questions divided into 3 thematic groups by their sense. The second test consists of 8 questions allowing identifying the motivating teaching/learning method. Afterwards, according to the questionnaire results, the answers were analyzed, and the basic conclusions were made regarding the research goal, based on students’ opinions. 140 students aged 17–22 participated in the survey. Of them, 50 students aged 21– 22 participated in the survey on Technology Background of Manufacturing Polymers; 40 students aged 17–20 in the survey on Mathematics; and 50 students aged 18–20 in the survey on Jurisprudence. 4.1

Outcomes of Surveying on the Efficiency of Active Learning Methods

The questionnaire consists of 16 questions divided into 2 thematic groups by their sense. The questionnaire is attached as Appendix 1. 140 people were involved in questioning, each questionnaire form was processed separately. 100% of the respondents answered all the questions in the form. Group of Questions I The first group of questions in the form (Questions 1–7) was aimed at identifying the general functional characteristics of active learning methods, such as actuality, performance, audience interest, and easiness of understanding, remembering, and reproducing the course contents. Thus, the following outcomes were obtained regarding question: “Are the active learning methods used in Technology Background of

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Manufacturing Polymers (TBMP)/Mathematics/Jurisprudence actual?” (number of respondents having answered “yes” to this question is shown) (Fig. 1).

% of respondents

Active Learning Methods 90% 80% 70% 68% 60% 52%

TBMP

Actuality

Mathematics Jurisprudence

Fig. 1. Actuality of active learning methods and interest in active lessons, expressed by students

It was found that, upon giving lectures accompanied by slide presentations, as compared to classical lectures, for the Technology Background of Manufacturing Polymers, 72% of respondents had noted easier perception of course materials, 56% had noted better remembering, and 54% had noted easier reproduction. For Mathematics, these figures were 80%, 50%, and 76%, respectively. For Jurisprudence, these figures were 70%, 60%, and 60%, respectively. According to the survey of students, the following data was obtained regarding enhancing the individual cognitive activities and academic progress (Fig. 2).

Improving the Progress and Cognitive Activities

44%

TBMP

40%

Mathematics

40%

Jurisprudence

Fig. 2. Improving the progress and cognitive activities due to using active learning methods

Thus, we can conclude that active teaching/learning methods help adult students easier acquire and reproduce course materials, find solutions for the problems set, and motivate students to enhance their progress. Active learning methods intensify and develop the cognitive activities of students and promote enhancing the general learning performance.

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Group of Questions II This group of questions (8–13 in the questionnaire) allows finding out whether active learning methods affect the development of personal qualities in students, and whether such effects are expressed to a larger extent as compared to classical educational forms and methods. In average, the results were about the same for each of the disciplines under research. According to the survey, 36% of respondents noted that participating in problembased, i.e., active, classes promotes developing the sense of responsibility, 22% the sense of self-confidence, 84% the sense of respect for and tolerance towards the others’ opinions, and 28% professional competence, all to a greater extent than in using classical learning methods (Fig. 3).

Developing Personal Chracneristics 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Responsibility

Confidence

Respect and tolerance

Professional competence

Fig. 3. Developing personal characteristics due to using active learning methods

It should also be noted that respondents (68%) had emphasized improving the friendly relationships within the group and the feedback to the person teaching the discipline (34%) due to conducting classes in active and interactive modes (Fig. 4).

Developing Personal Qualities

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Friendly attitude towards fellow students

Friendly attitude towards professor

Fig. 4. Developing personal qualities due to using active learning methods

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Thus, we can conclude that active learning methods promote more emotionally perceiving the teaching/learning process, developing professional competences, and intensifying creative activities. Group of Questions III Final questions (14–16) in the survey allowed us to find out that most respondents are confident of the efficiency of the teaching/learning methods used and satisfied with the knowledge acquired. Some respondents consider using active learning methods to enable enhancing the learning progress, if they are combined with classical ones (Fig. 5).

% of respondents

Efficiency and Performance of Active Learning Methods

40%

38%

26%

TBMP

Mathematics Jurisprudence

Fig. 5. Efficiency and performance of active learning methods

As a beneficial trend, we should notice that 66% of all the respondents consider using active learning methods necessary to be used in educational process, along with the classical ones (Fig. 6). Need to Use Active Methods No need to use any active methods 35%

Active methods are necessary 65% Fig. 6. Need to use active methods

Questionnaire: The Most Motivating Active Learning Methods Questions included in the Most Motivating Active Learning Methods questionnaire are presented in Appendix 2. The first question in the survey allows finding out which of the active learning forms the respondents liked best, and which is the most memorable. Percentages of the most important, in the students’ opinion, learning methods are shown in Fig. 7.

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The Most Important Active Learning Methods Seminar Lecture with errors Practical studies Brainstorming Business simulation games Student-teacher Experiment Power Point lecture Fig. 7. Adult education methods

When analyzing the questionnaire data, the most respondents noted that the most memorable learning method had been the Power Point lecture allowing them to focus on the key content of the lecture, represented in a compact and informative context. This is quite a convenient and advanced way of presenting materials, such as tables, diagrams, explanatory drawings, and images. The most interesting method of giving lectures for adult students is the Power Point lecture in Technology Background of Manufacturing Polymers and in Jurisprudence, this is the opinion of 54% of the respondents; for 32% of respondents, a more conventional form of classes is a classical lecture, in which the course materials are completely available where they are written down by the lecture attendees. 14% of the respondents were interested in participating in a problem-based lecture, in which every new section starts with problem statement followed by describing the methods and ways of solving the problem. For Mathematics, 68% of the respondents preferred the Power Point lecture, while 22% and 10% the classical lecture and the problem-based lecture, respectively. These outcomes can also be explained as follows. For students who eager to understand the lecture material immediately, the most comfortable is perceiving the relevant information in a compact, but informative manner, as presented in posters or slides. Classical lecture allows getting much more materials for further getting into more detail, while a problem-based lecture requires the student’s involvement in the lecture itself and in discussing the relevant problem. According to the majority of the respondents for each discipline, the most preferable form of intermediate assessment is test. Other results are as follows (Fig. 8). We can assume that students find it more convenient, for the final assessment, to choose ready-made answers to the questions in a test than to formulate their own answers as it is required in a review work. Using an active assessment method, i.e., a lecture with some pre-planned errors in it, is not popular with the adult studying audience: This assessment method was chosen by fewer students; perhaps, because these assessment methods had not become a mainstream yet [4, p. 1342].

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Most Preferable Assessment Forms 100% 80%

10% 22%

10% 10%

68%

80%

TBMP

Mathematics

60% 40% 20%

Review work Lecture with errors

22% 18% 60%

0% Jurisprudence

Fig. 8. Forms of assessment

Practical and experimental classes promote developing the logical and cognitive activities of a student. In case of classical lessons, students fulfill the tasks assigned to them and then provide a conclusion regarding the work performed, as a report. In case of active classes, upon completion of a practical task or an experiment, students should discuss the outcomes in small groups or individually, make key conclusions, and defend them in presence of the entire group. Passive learning methods were chosen by the majority of the respondents answering the question: What form of practical or experimental classes did you like best? (Fig. 9).

% of respondents

Conducting Practical and Experimental Classes 80% 56% 44%

54% 46% 20%

TBMP

Active classes Passive classes

MathematicsJurisprudence

Fig. 9. Forms of conducting practical and experimental classes

The student’s ability to prove and justify his or her opinion is a way of developing his or her personal potential. According to the respondents (76%), group discussions allow completely disclosing each student’s attitude towards the problem stated, to prove his or her own viewpoint in a problem situation, justify the idea of how to solve the problem, or develop the above abilities. Brainstorming was chosen by 14% of the respondents, while business simulation games – by 10% of them. Active learning methods were preferred by the greatest part of the respondents answering the question: Which of the learning methods provides the most motivating effect on you? (Fig. 10).

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% of respondents

Motivating Students to Study 58% 42%

TBMP

60% 40%

54% 46%

Classical methods Active methods

Mathematics Jurisprudence

Fig. 10. Methods that motivate students to study most

Without a doubt, active learning methods can motivate students to learn more successfully. It is also interesting to know, which of the active learning forms are the most motivating ones and promote the most involved activities of the students (Fig. 11). The Most Motivating Active Learning Methods 16%

6%

24%

10% 14%

14% 16%

Seminar Brainstorming Experiment Student-teacher Problem-based lecture Group discussion Practical studies

Fig. 11. Active methods that induce the highest motivation of students to study.

Figure 11 allows us to conclude that the most motivating active learning methods are as follows: Seminar (24%), group discussion (16%), and experiment (16%). The above learning methods used in teaching the Technology Background in Manufacturing Polymers, except for the problem-based lecture, are the means of assessing the students’ knowledge. For their active involvement in class, students are credited with points that form an individual point-rating system. Therefore, seemingly, giving a talk at a seminar, actively performing experimental work, and conducting discussions and reflections have a well-expressed motivating focus on educational process.

5 Summary Experimentally, based on methods, such as questionnaires, observations, and personal interviews, we determined the general functional characteristics of active learning methods, such as actuality, efficiency, and the interest of audience, and the effect provided by active learning methods on the development of the students’ personal

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qualities, as compared to traditional teaching/learning techniques, in which the main principles of andragogical paradigm were not considered. The research hypothesis has been verified that the competency-based approach to education cannot be implemented efficiently without using active learning methods in educational process.

Appendix 1 Questionnaire 1 – Efficiency of Active Learning Methods Discipline:_____________ Academic year: _________ Group:_______ Instructions: Please answer 15 questions below. Your answer may be yes (please put “+”) or no (please put “–“).

Questions 1. Are the active learning methods used in this discipline actual? 2. Do you feel it easier to understand the course materials, if the lectures are accompanied by a slide presentation, an information stand, illustrations, posters, group discussions, or brainstorming? 3. Is it easier to you to remember the course materials, if the lectures are accompanied by a slide presentation, an information stand, illustrations, posters, group discussions, or brainstorming? 4. Do you feel it easier to reproduce the materials presented in class, if its central provisions and problems have been discussed in group discussions, business simulation games, seminars, or at practical or experimental classes? 5. Is it more interesting for you to attend classes conducted in active and interactive modes, such as a problem-based lecture, practical class, group discussion, group interviews, or experiment, as compared to classical lectures, practical seminar, and laboratorial classes? 6. Do you observe any improvement of your individual cognitive activities in the discipline due to being involved in active classes? 7. Do you observe any improvement in your progress in the discipline due to being involved in active classes? 8. Does participation in problem-focused/active classes develop your sense of responsibility to a greater extent than participation in classical ones? 9. Do these classes develop your self-confidence, as compared to classical ones? 10. Do active classes develop a friendlier attitude towards your fellow students? 11. Do active classes develop a friendlier attitude towards your professor? 12. Do the classes conducted develop a sense of respect for and tolerance to others’ opinions? 13. Do the active classes promote the development of professional qualities, skills, and abilities to a greater extent than classical learning methods? 14. Do you think active learning methods are efficient? 15. Do you think using active learning methods promotes the enhancement of educational performance, along with classical methods?

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Appendix 2 Questionnaire 2 – The Most Motivating Active Learning Methods Discipline:_____________ Academic year: _________ Group:_______ Please answer 8 questions below. Choose only 1 answer to each question. 1. Which of the active learning forms below do you like and remember best? a) experiment; b) Power Point lecture; c) demonstration/practice; d) brainstorming; e) business simulation games; f) problem-based lecture; g) student-teacher; h) lectures with pre-planned errors; i) seminar; j) small discussion groups. 2. What method of lecturing do you like better? a) classical lecture; b) problem-based lecture; c) Power Point lecture. 3. What intermediate assessment method do you like better? a) test; b) review work; c) recitation; d) colloquium; e) lecture with errors. 4. What form of practical/experimental classes do you like better? a) active, such as practices/experiments with group or individual discussions on problem-based situations; b) passive, such as standard laboratorial works. 5. What learning method allows you to present your viewpoint in a problem-based situation to the full extent? а) brainstorming; b) group discussions; c) business simulation games; d) discussion. 6. In what type of classes is it most interesting for you to present your materials to the entire group or to give a talk? a) seminar; b) student-teacher; c) group discussion; d) I don’t like to present anything by myself. 7. Which of the learning methods affects you in the most motivating manner? a) classical methods; b) active methods. If you have chosen (a), please answer the question below: Which of active learning methods affects you in the most motivating manner, i. e., develops your motivation for studying? a) experiment; b) Power Point lecture; c) demonstration/practice; d) brainstorming; e) business simulation games; f)problem-based lecture; g) student-teacher; h) lectures with pre-planned errors; i) seminar; j) small discussion groups. 8. Should any active learning methods be used, or is it better to conduct classes by classical methods? a) Active learning methods should be implemented; b) Classes will be more efficient, if classical methods are used.

Using active methods in engineering education are well regarded by students. They emphasize some critical factors of the successful implementation thereof, including the efficient collaboration with fellow students and developing teamwork skills. To stimulate students to go beyond the basic educational requirements, it is very important to keep them highly motivated during the entire working time [5; p. 156].

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For students, a benefit from such approach was acquiring technical knowledge on developing printed circuit boards and risk analysis, and they also were trained in changing their thinking strategies, decision making, negotiating, and collaborating with each other. For teachers, this approach required long-term preparations, since they had to develop a special curricula and course programs, as well as teaching aids. The teachers had to learn a new role of “instructor” or “tutor.” They had to help students learn by supporting them, directing the process, and monitoring their activities, since active methods are both learning and assessing methods. Interdisciplinary approach to and using active learning methods in engineering education allows teaching students to independently acquire and practically use knowledge from various areas, group knowledge components, and concentrate them in the context of a specific problem to be solved [6; p. 1694]. Moreover, the conditions are created for developing critical thinking and for showing creativity. Having a need for and a real possibility of applying their competencies developed, students realize why various theories, concepts, or rules are important, so they do not perceive them as just abstract models, but as useful tools in their educational and vocational activities. At all stages of their studies, they experience the need for an active interaction and for the establishment of partner relationship with their teachers, course mates, and experts in the area of the problem to be solved, in order to exchange opinions and discuss hypotheses and findings. In future, we are going to implement active methods as widely as possible in teaching our students in the subjects of various areas, including socio-humanistic, natural-science, and mathematical ones.

References 1. Auer, M.E., Tsafoshnig, A.: Participation of IGIP in the world forum on engineering education. In: Higher Education in Russia, vol. 3, no. march, pp. 40–45 (2015) 2. Fitzsimons, C.H.: Role of project based learning in education: case study of Young Enterprise Northern Ireland. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL 2016), Clayton Hotel, Belfast, UK, 21–23 September 2016, pp. 1289–1293 (2016) 3. Tolkacheva, K.K.: Expert seminar as a form of achieving the objectives set for the problembased training of professionals in engineering and technology: Thesis in support of candidature in pedagogy: 13.00.08, Kazan (2015). 138 p. 4. Pavlova, I.V., Sanger, P.A.: Applying andragogy to promote active learning in adult education in Russia. Int. J. Eng. Pedagogy 6(4), 1342–1348 (2016) 5. Sanger, P.A., Pavlova, I.V., Shageeva, F.T., Khatsrinova, O.Y., Ivanov, V.G.: Introducing project based learning into traditional russian engineering education. In: ICL 2017 – 20th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Budapest, Hungary, 27–29 September 2017, pp. 154–162 (2017) 6. Barabanova, S.V., Kraysman, N.V., Nikonova, G.A., Nikonova, N.V., Shagieva, R.V.: Poster: improvement of professional education quality by means of mathematics integration with general education and vocation-related subjects. In: Auer, M., Tsiatsos, T. (eds.) The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education, ICL 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 917, pp. 1693–1698 (2019)

Project Interdisciplinarity in Legal Students Education of Technological University Svetlana V. Barabanova1(&), Natalia V. Kraysman1, Timofey G. Makarov2, Larisa G. Schurikova1, and Fyodor G. Myshko3 1

Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russia [email protected] 3 State University of Management, Moscow, Russia [email protected] Keywords: Engineering education Interdisciplinary projects


Interdisciplinary legal education


1 Context Modern engineering education aims at developing in students the ability to solve technical, organizational, and managerial complex multidisciplinary professional problems. Multidisciplinary problems cannot be solved without developing in students an understanding of the integrity of the surrounding reality and the multidimensionality of their future professional activity. One of the current trends in Russian engineering education development, ensuring understanding of the integrity of the surrounding reality, is the interdisciplinarity of legal professional knowledge based on the integration of humanitarian and engineering technologies and forming the “value-regulatory basis” of future activities for students. Interdisciplinarity of engineering students’ professional legal education can be ensured, first of all, through implementation of interdisciplinary projects involving interaction between teachers of humanitarian and technical departments, as well as representatives of employers who form the demand for training specialists of a certain competence. As part of social partnership interaction on the basis of the customer enterprise, a business game project can be developed that provides simulation of real production processes. The objectives should be multidisciplinary, which implies that the students have the skills and abilities to solve both technical, organizational and managerial problems.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 578–588, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_55

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2 Purpose or Goal For many centuries, the scientific and technological evolution has been resourceintensive and nature-destroying, which has led to depletion of resources, changes in natural phenomena and processes, rapid deterioration of the environment. “Human influence on the biosphere evolution has increased dramatically with the emergence and development of the industrial society” [8]. The global transformations of the modern world lead to various political, economic, and social problems. Unfortunately, those measures of managerial influence and the huge financial resources allocated for solution of these problems fail to gain traction. This is evidenced by the periodic economic crises, environmental disasters, various kinds of social upheaval. One of the main reasons for these phenomena is the lack of understanding of the unity of the world, characterized by deep interaction and interpenetration of all spheres of human existence. Currently, there are dozens of studies devoted to solving this problem, their analysis leads to the conclusion that the main links in its solution are science and education [2, p. 22]. The current trend in engineering education in Russia, ensuring formation of an understanding of the surrounding reality integrity, is the interdisciplinarity of professional knowledge. Now the social procurement is formed for training engineers who will possessing not only the necessary scope of special technical knowledge, but profound knowledge in organization and management of production, human resources and providing social importance and safety of engineering researches. The main interdisciplinarity tasks in the professional legal training of future engineers include: • development of motivational readiness of students to perceive the legal material as a necessary condition for improving the quality of professional training; • promotion of engineer (engineering) activities and technology in Russia; • ensuring the civil rights to a favorable environment for human and society through efficiency, reliability, safety of the outcome of engineer (engineering) activities; • prevention of negative consequences of unprofessional engineer activity. Traditionally, the bottleneck in Russian universities is the weak interdisciplinary links and involvement of students in joint activities. Insufficient attention is paid to development of interdisciplinary training programs that provide students with an understanding of the universal nature of their future activities, their economic and social value. Professional training of an engineering graduate is largely of a narrowsubject nature, which does not allow them to obtain a holistic systemic knowledge that provides a solution to complex multi-disciplinary problems. This is primarily due to the inertia of modern vocational education. And in most cases, the reforms to the system of vocational education are only on “paper” and do not change its essence in general. Despite the fact that a huge number of domestic and foreign scientific publications are devoted to taking full advantage of interdisciplinarity, some scientists believe that this is impossible due to lack of a meta-language for interdisciplinary research description [7, p. 9]. It seems, however, that legal sciences and disciplines, first of all,

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law as a basic integral general education course, can be attractive and useful for nonlegalt students in terms of professional onboarding. Currently, social and partner interaction is provided mainly through practical training. These relations involve the employer and teachers of the departments, who prepare students for writing the graduation work and passing the final exams. However, humanities departments, including those providing legal education, do not participate in this. So, the training of students for activities involving humanities knowledge, legal above all, is very superficial. In these conditions, legal education of engineering students, based on the contextual and interdisciplinary approach, involves creation of an educational environment that ensures perception of future professional activities by the students as a cohesive whole and forms its “value-regulatory basis” [2, p. 24]. In turn, contextual legal education allows solving the problems of engineering education humanization, fostering in students responsibility for the results of their activities, facilitating development of subject knowledge and fundamental cross-subject concepts.

3 Approach Interdisciplinary professional knowledge formation in students is impossible without mastering the axiological and regulatory basis for future professional activities. However, legal education is perceived by engineering students as purely general, not related to their professional activities. Such perception of legal material significantly reduces the students’ motivation to study it. Interdisciplinarity in legal education should be provided by development of interaction in studying humanitarian and professional disciplines, as well as extension of partnerships with industrial enterprises – consumers of the educational product. It should be viewed as integration of law and industrial economics, based on a holistic paradigm, involving the integrity of scientific knowledge, the unity of training. With an interdisciplinary approach based on the integration of knowledge in technological, organizational, and managerial innovations, legal education becomes an element of a unified science based on the post-non-classical cognitive methodology of “formation of new ways and means of thinking” [1]. It can be noted that there are certain problems in the development of partnership between humanitarian and socio-economic departments and enterprises which, as a rule, have no idea about the specifics of humanitarian training of students of technical universities. Legal education of engineering students is traditionally fundamental, comprehensible and does not provide a solution to the problem of implementing a contextual approach to legal education of an engineer in the interests of training a modern specialist. In our opinion, a modern specialist should have the necessary scope of legal knowledge that meets the requirements of professional standards and expectations of employers. Increasing the level of professionally oriented legal education of technical university students can be ensured, first of all, through implementation of interdisciplinary projects involving interaction between teachers of humanitarian and technical departments, as well as representatives of employers who form the demand for implementation of these

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projects. In the process of such interaction, students gain a professional insight to the legal knowledge acquired, realize its relationship with future professional activities, resulting in increased interest in mastering the legal material. Applied regulatory and legal knowledge of technology students include: • • • • •

knowledge of the legal basis for regulation of engineering activities; knowledge of legal basis for regulation of labor relations; knowledge of legal basis for business and innovation; knowledge of legal framework of HSE; knowledge of legal basis for regulation of relations in creation and use of protected intellectual property and means of identification.

The interdisciplinary approach to the legal education of engineering students should be followed in the following activities: (1) implementation of interdisciplinary projects as part of solving educational professional tasks; (2) involving students in research activities based on the interdisciplinary cooperation principle; (3) organization of professional development of teachers, including those of Humanities, on the basis of the customer enterprise. The analysis of the last generation Federal High Education Standards on the programs implemented in Kazan National Research Technological University, allows us to conclude that the training of students of a technological university should be multidisciplinary – in order to form their ability to solve problems of technological, organizational, managerial, and project type. This makes work-related legal training of students very relevant. In addition, legal education of students ensures formation of their set of attitudes and values that determine the program of a person’s behavior in various life situations, regulated by legal norms. In professional team activities, legal attitudes of a person largely determine the system of group values, the nature of corporate interpersonal relationships, help organize effective joint staff operations. Upon completion of the on-the-job training, graduates have a certain pool of knowledge about the essence of the processes, technological schemes, and devices and practically no idea about the organizational and managerial activities in production. Therefore, starting professional activity, a university graduate has to spend a lot of time on mastering a large amount of regulatory information and develop the necessary skills to work with it [6, p. 90]. Our graduates who later took the MBA program at the University of Twente, Holland shared their Philips traineeship experience. When they came to Philips for practical study, they were happy to know that there is no penalty for being late and there isn’t, in their opinion, a strict control of working time. Having received the first salary with numerous deductions in proportion to the worked (i.e., the unworked) time, they saw the actual mechanism of workplace discipline control in the company. The sporadic character of an engineer’s professional education accounts for the fact that most industrial managers find engineering graduates unprepared for work in hightech enterprises, so their transfer to engineering and managerial positions is only

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possible after gaining practical experience at working positions [3, p. 26]. As before, the “fine-tuning” of a technical graduate to the necessary requirements is carried out by the employer independently and requires considerable costs. All this makes graduates of technical universities uncompetitive in the labor market. An employer is very reluctant to hire the so-called “young specialists”, preferring experienced resources, realizing that it will take a long time to develop the required professional competence in a young employee, that will enable him to perform work in engineering and managerial positions. Improving the level and quality of legal education of technical students should be provided by, first of all, the development of social partnership between the University and the customer enterprise on the basis of interdisciplinary approach, with the participation of humanitarian departments. As already noted, the latter provide for the formation of universal competence of graduates, involving knowledge and skills in organization of production, work, and intercultural communication. Partnership interaction also involves a deep analysis of professional standards and requirements of customer employers to the professional competence of employees. The employers’ requirements to the content of legal competence of technology bachelors of Kazan National Research Technological University were surveyed using the method of expert assessment. We engaged top and middle managers of petrochemical enterprises as experts. A total of 84 people took part in the survey. These experts were invited to highlight law expertise, knowledge and skills, as well as to identify the basic personal qualities necessary to work in chemical technology. The experts identified the following knowledge and skills needed to carry out activities in this field: • knowledge of regulatory documents accompanying the work of a technology bachelor, oil and gas processing and petrochemistry norms and rules, HSE and labour regulatory framework of the Russian Federation, Russian legislation on technical regulation, industrial, fire and transport safety; • knowledge of the occupational safety standards system, knowledge and ability to use regulatory documentation (SNiP, GOST, RD, PB); • ability to receive and analyze legal information; • ability to legally correctly execute organizational and administrative documentation. As for individual professional qualities, from the standpoint of legal education, experts have identified the following main qualities that their employees should have: sociability, discipline, responsibility for the results of their work.

4 Actual or Anticipated Outcomes The goal of training a specialist that meets the requirements of employers can be achieved through the use in legal education of interdisciplinary project conception, which has a high didactic potential and ensures the formation of students’ systemic knowledge and skills necessary for diplome conception, and, in the future, for implementation of joint projects in the process of joint professional activity.

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Interdisciplinary project conception is particularly productive in solving creative and research problems arising in course of professional activities in the field of technology. As part of social partnership interaction on the basis of the customer enterprise, a business game project can be developed that provides simulation of real production processes. The tasks set for the students should be cross-specialty, interdisciplinary, assuming that the students have integral knowledge both in technical and humanitarian training, ensuring skills and abilities to solve both technical, organizational and managerial problems. “Involving students into project activities should ensure the formation of graduates’ competencies that provide advanced competitiveness in the labor market” [4, p. 95]. The interdisciplinary approach to the legal education of students of technical universities has led to the use of the method of situational analysis in the process of interdisciplinary project conception, which allows building students’ legal competence taking into account professional specialization. This method is synergetic in content, as it involves immersing students in the situation, creating the effects of knowledge multiplication, information exchange, and insight. The method of situational analysis is built on the concept of problem-based activity learning. This concept is about creating special conditions in which student, using the acquired legal knowledge, independently comprehends and formalizes the professional problem, and carries out practical activities in order to find and justify the optimal solution. This method provides development of skills of a systematic approach to solving professional problems; in addition, it also provides integration of theoretical and practical professional expertise, knowledge and skills. As already noted, applied legal knowledge of technology students includes knowledge about legal regulation of relations in intellectual property. Enterprises constantly develop and patent new industrial property: inventions, utility models, and prototypes. The patenting process requires both profound technical and legal knowledge. In this regard, in social partnership on the basis of the customer enterprise, technology students can be invited to participate in this process. The knowledge obtained in studying technical and legal disciplines at the University will help students correctly prepare all the necessary documents for taking out a patent under the control of a representative of the customer enterprise (an employee of the IP management Department). Interdisciplinary approach is inevitable in delivery of such a project, as engineering knowledge alone will not be enough, and legal knowledge will be necessary. Therefore, not only employees of enterprises, but university teachers as well can be involved in the project. In addition to helping former students, teachers can see in practice what subjects and sections of the courses should be paid more attention to speed up and simplify the onboarding process for the graduates. It is obvious that the connection between practice and theory should not be interrupted, because complex professional problems can only be successfully solved on the basis of the digested theoretical material. Development of social partnership of universities with potential employers contributes to achievement of the following pedagogical goals: (1) implementation of the competency approach in engineering education;

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(2) joint determination of the content of students’ professional competency under the tailored educational program; (3) increasing the attractiveness of university graduates by providing the preliminary assessment of their competency by the employer [5]; (4) ability to objectively assess through the project the students’ professional competency development by both teachers and future employers; (5) identifying areas for correction of vocational training in order to meet the needs of employers for graduates with certain competence.

5 Conclusions Currently, as part of interdisciplinary cooperation, teachers of the Department of law and the Department of Industrial Safety have prepared guidelines “Occupational Safety System at Industrial Enterprises” and a workbook for practical training for magistrands of the engineering chemical and technological Institute, studying “Occupational Safety Management System”, magistrands of the faculty of chemical technology, studying “Labor and Administrative Legislation”, as well as for students of the Institute of Innovation management, studying “Life safety”. Preparation of the above guidance materials was preceded by identification of interdisciplinary links of “Jurisprudence” with professional disciplines, first of all “Life Safety” studied by 18.03.01 “Chemical Technology”. The interdisciplinary links were defined by analyzing the requirements of FGOS VO Standard for 18.03.01 “Chemical Technology” bachelors, 20.04.01 “Technosphere Safety” masters, as well as the curricula for these programs. The guidance materials prepared by the authors contain project-type multidisciplinary practical tasks assuming that students have the necessary scope of legal and specialized technical knowledge. The solution is based on the continuity and interdisciplinarity of legal professional knowledge and aims at forming a holistic view of future professional activity in the students. The solution of project-type multi-disciplinary legal problems by students in the process of studying law provides: – development of the ability to justify the ultimate goal to be achieved; – development of the ability to identify internal and external relationships of the tasks set, resources that require close coordination during implementation of the project, presented as a set of interrelated actions; – formation of skills of working with regulatory documents related to occupational health and safety at a chemical enterprise. In applying interdisciplinary project conception in legal education of technical university students, we noted a significant increase in motivation of students to learn legal material, commitment to deepen, extend, and structure legal knowledge. The work of the Russian higher education institutions in this field and the achieved results

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were already described in a number of publications [10–14]. It is submitted that the project interdisciplinarity also deserves the attentive studying and replication for training of modern engineers mastering the knowledge and skills of cross-disciplinary character, capable to work in teams while performing various integrative projects. Realization of such projects should become the core of the interdisciplinary education of technical university students, since they ensure development of holistic systemic thinking and formation of integrated professional knowledge in graduates. The increase in level of students’ motivation to mastering the legal material was confirmed with results of the experiment made in control and experimental groups of students on the Chemical Technology direction in KNRTU. In a control group the purpose of a law study was assimilation of basic legal categories. The contextual approach based on application of a cross-disciplinary project conception and cross-disciplinary interaction method of the teachers providing implementation of all educational program was the cornerstone of students’ legal education of an experimental group. The mathematical and statistical methods of expert assessments were used for processing of results. The assessment of level was carried out at the beginning of the discipline studying (level of starting development) and after completion of the course in order to determinate the motivation development level of students to the law study. The method of diagnostics of educational motivation orientation offered by Dubovitskaya T. D. (Russia) was applied to the determination of starting development level. The choice of this method is determined by a rather high level of its reliability and validity. 50 answers of students of control and experimental groups were selectively processed. The need of jurisprudence studying during the course of vocational training became a key issue of the questionary. Results are presented in the Table 1. Table 1. Results of an enquiry about the need of jurisprudence studying by students technologists Groups

Control group Experimental group

Total number of persons 64 68

It is necessary to study the law

Studying of the law is a waste of time

Neither agree nor disagree

44 persons – 68,75% 42 persons – 63,24%

8 persons – 12,5%

12 persons – 18,75% 12 persons – 16,17%

14 persons – 20,59%

By comparison of an enquiry results by T.D. Dubovitskaya’s method, with a key, on formula 1, K ¼ 1  ððP þ qÞÞ=ns

ð1Þ

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Where – a number of incorrect solutions; – a number of answers “I do not know “; – a total number of questions and tasks; – a number of respondents in group [122],

solidarity coefficient – Ks determining the level of students’ educational motivation of control and experimental groups to studying the discipline “Jurisprudence” was calculated. The results of the made calculations were comparable: in control group Ks – 0.64; in experimental group Ks – 0.62. We have defined the level of motivation development after studying the discipline by repeated questioning of students according to a method of diagnostics of educational motivation orientation of T.D. Dubovitskaya. After repeated questioning we have received the following results: Кc of a control group—0.66; Кc of an experimental group—0.71. The received results allow to draw a conclusion that professional orientation of the discipline “Jurisprudence”, the use of studying the law of cross-disciplinary project conception during the course allowed to increase 9 points the motivation of students of experimental group to its studying. Also, the educational motivation to studying the law of control group students increased only 4 points. The results of the made experiment allow us to draw a conclusion that crossdisciplinary projects have to become a training core at technical university as they provide increase in level of students’ motivation to mastering the legal material, contribute to the development of complete system thinking and formation of the integrated professional knowledge. Professional training of engineers on the basis of interdisciplinary projects will help prepare highly skilled professionals capable of involving new knowledge, technologies, and competencies in their projects, and will ensure the competitive edge to domestic innovation systems in the future [9].

References 1. Alieva, N.Z.: Obrazovanye v XXI veke: aksiologitcheskiy aspect: monografia. YuRGUES, Shakhty (2010). 223 p. (Alieva N.Z. Education in the 21st century: axiological aspect: monograph. Mines: SUSU, 2010. – 223 p.) 2. Bagdasaryan, N.G.: Kulturnaya missia injenera. Novye standarty i tekhnologii injenernogo obrazovanya: vozmojnosti vuzov i potrebnosti neftegazokhimitcheskoy otrasli, Sinergya 2017. Sbornik dokladov i nautchnykh statey mejdunarodnoy setevoy konferencii, Kazan: “Bronto”, pp. 21–25 (2017). (Bagdasaryan N.G. Cultural mission of engineer. New standards and technologies of engineering education: possibilities of higher education institutions and requirement of the petrochemical industry, Synergy 2017. Book of reports and academic papers of the international network conference, Kazan: “Bronto”, 2017. – P. 21–25.)

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3. Baybekova, L.R., Sharifullin, A.V., Muratova, G.Ya.: Sovershenstvovanye podgotovki injenerno-tekhnitcheskikh kadrov. Novye standarty i tekhnologii injenernogo obrazovanya: vozmojnosti vuzov i potrebnosti neftegazokhimitcheskoy otrasli, Sinergya 2017. Sbornik dokladov i nautchnykh statey mejdunarodnoy setevoy konferencii, pp. 25–28, “Bronto”, Kazan (2017). (Baybekova L.R., Sharifullin A.V., Muratova G.Ya. Improvement of technical personnel training. New standards and technologies of engineering education: possibilities of higher education institutions and requirement of the petrochemical industry, Synergy 2017. Book of reports and academic papers of the international network conference, Kazan: “Bronto”, 2017. – P. 25–28.) 4. Gavrilova, O.E., Nikitina, L.L., Shageeva, F.T.: Socialnoye partnerstvo kak ontimalnoye usloviye realizacii v injenernom vuze proektnogo podkhoda k obutchenyu. Upravlenye ustoytchivym razvitiem 2(15), 94–98 (2018). (Gavrilova O.E., Nikitina L.L., Shageeva F.T. Social partnership as an optimal condition of realization in engineering higher education institution of project-based approach to training. Sustainability management. 2018. №2 (15). – P. 94–98.) 5. Ismagilov, R.M.: O konvergentnom obrazovanii. Nautchno-metoditcheskiyelektronniy jurnal “Koncept”. T. 13, 351–355 (2015). http://e-koncept.ru/2015/85071.htm. (Ismagilov R.M. About convergent education. Scientific and methodical online magazine “Concept” 2015. T. 13. – P. 351–355.URL: http://e-koncept.ru/2015/85071.htm.) 6. Islamkhuzin, D.Ya., Gimranov, F.M., Fakhrazieva, Z.R.: Puti sovershenstvovanya sistemy podgotovki kadrov dlya proektnykh organizacyi neftekhimitcheskoy otrasli. Upravlenye ustoytchivym razvitiem 3(16), 90–98 (2018). (Islamkhuzin D.Ya., Gimranov F.M., Fakhrazieva Z.R. Ways of improvement of the personnel training system for the project organizations of the petrochemical industry. Sustainability management. 2018. № 3(16). – P. 90–98.) 7. Kak budet menyatsya upravlenye universitetom: Interviu glavnogo redaktora A. Kluyeva s rektorom Tomskogo nationalnogo issledovatelskogo universiteta E. Galajinskim. Universitetskoye upravlenye: praktika i analiz. T. 22(2), 6–10 (2018). (Which way the management of the university will change: Interview of the editor-in-chief A. Klyuev with the rector of the Tomsk National Research University E. Galazhinsky. University management: practice and analysis. T. 22 (2) 2018. - P. 6–10.) 8. Kovaltchuk, M.V., Naraykin, O.S., Yatsishina, E.B.: Konvergentsya nauk i tekhnologiy – novyi etap nautchno-tekhnitcheskogo razvitya. Voprosi filisofii. 3, 3–12 (2013). (Kovaltchuk M.V., Naraykin O.S., Yatsishina E.B. Convergence of sciences and technologies – a new stage of scientific and technical development. Philosophy questions. 2013. № 3. – P.3–12.) 9. Rasporyajenye Pravitelstva RF ot 08.12.2011 № 2227-r (red. ot 18.10.2018) “Ob utverjdenii Strategii innovatsionnogo razvitya Rossiyskoy Federatsii na period do 2020 goda”. http:// www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_123444/ (Government Executive Order from 08.12.2011 № 2227-p (ed. from 18.10.2018) “About the confirmation of Innovative development strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020” http://www.consultant.ru/ document/cons_doc_LAW_123444/) 10. Barabanova, S.V., Ivanov, V.G., Zinurova, R.I., Suntsova, M.S.: On legal support for engineering activities: a new managerial project. In: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 715, pp. 582–591 (2018) 11. Barabanova, S., Zinurova, R. Novye podkhody k formirivaniyu pravovoy kompetentnosti v injenernoy pedagogike. Vyshee obrazovanie v Rossii. 7, 138–146. (Barabanova S., Zinurova R. New approaches to formation of engineering pedagogics legal competence. Higher Education in Russia № 7. - P. 138–146)

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12. Barabanova, S.V.: Bilingualism, multicultural and comparative law in engineering education. In: Vysshee obrazovanie v Rossii [Higher Education in Russia], no. 7, pp. 20– 25 (2015). (in Russian) 13. Ivanov, V., Miftakhova, N., Barabanova, S., Lefterova, O.: New components of educational path for a modern engineer. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Florence, Italy, 20–24 September 2015, pp. 184–187. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Red Hook (2015) 14. Barabanova, S.V., Shagieva, R.V., Gorokhova, S.S., Popova, O.V., Rozhnov, A.A., Popova, A.V.: Innovative components in the educational strategy of training the modern graduates. J. IEJME-Math. Educ. - IJESE (IJESE 16-264)

The Needs-Oriented Approach of the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy and Education Diego Gormaz-Lobos1,2(&), Claudia Galarce-Miranda1,2, Hanno Hortsch3, and Steffen Kersten4 1 Universidad de Talca, Talca, Chile {Diego_Osvaldo.Gormaz_Lobos, Claudia.Galarce_Miranda}@tu-dresden.de 2 CIEI - IGIP Zentrum Universidad de Talca, Talca, Chile 3 IGIP, International Society for Engineering Pedagogy, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany [email protected] 4 Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany [email protected]

Abstract. This paper presents different aspects about the Needs-Oriented Approach on Engineering Pedagogy and Education developed since 1951 at the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany). Prof. Hans Lohmann founded in 1951 the Engineering Pedagogy Institute at the TU Dresden in his quest to systematize and to professionalize at an institutional level the teaching and research in engineering. Engineering Pedagogy is an interdisciplinary scientific subject that collect the “needs” and “demands” of: engineering and technical sciences, pedagogy and didactic and the education system in itself (see Lohmann 1954; Melezinek 1999). Lohmann’s work is continued at the present at the Institute for Vocational Education at TU Dresden, in charge of Prof. Hanno Hortsch (currently President of IGIP), who leaded many research projects in engineering education in Germany and another countries. Kersten (2015) proposes a scheme that describes the factors that influence and condition the Engineering Education: (i) the economic sector, (ii) engineering sciences, (iii) society, and (iv) the student (see Kersten et al. 2015). The results of two surveys show the (1) “needs” of academic training related to the different pedagogical aspects, and (2) “needs” for different knowledge, skills and technological tools for the teaching in engineering careers in relation to current and future industrial requirements. A Needs-Oriented Engineering Pedagogy seeks to establish a teaching and learning process that is better focused on the context where it develops. Keywords: Engineering Pedagogy
Needs-Oriented Engineering Pedagogy Needs-oriented engineering education
Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy and Education

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 589–600, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_56




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1 A Short History of the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy With the foundation of the Institute for Engineering Pedagogy at the Technische Universtität Dresden (TU Dresden) in 1951, Lohmann laid the starting point for the tradition of the Dresden School of Engineering Education and Pedagogy. Through his paradigm of technology and its teaching, Lohmann influenced the engineering pedagogy and research at the TU Dresden in the following decades and is still valid for the design of teaching and learning processes in academic Engineering Education. The starting point of Lohmann’s scientific reflections was the connection between the structure of a science and its teaching: every scientific teaching requires first the analysis of the corresponding science. Engineering science, which seeks and gains knowledge in and from the state of the art (see Lohmann 1954), requires therefore an analysis of technology. The concept of technology itself was defined by its function of “transforming the natural world” (602). Decisive for the connection of specialized science and educational science are the methodology of the subject science and the methodic of its teaching. While methodology refers exclusively to ways of finding knowledge in the field of science, methodic encompasses the paths of knowledge in which the teacher leads his students from the unknown to the known (see Lohmann 1954). From the investigation of theory and practice of technology Lohmann derives conclusions for the design of the teaching of technology and technics. This was done both for the “internal”, methodical design (goals, structure of contents, methods, and procedures for instance), as well as for the “external”, organizational design of this teaching (for example, the choice of students based on their suitability for the job description or the trainings coordination based on requirements of the economy) (see Hortsch and Reese 2012). In 1963 Prof. Franz Lichtenecker took over the management of the Institute for Engineering Pedagogy with new scientific reflections. In cooperation with Hering published in 1963 “Lösungsvarianten zum Lehrstoff-Zeit-Problem und ihre Ordnung” (Solution Variants on the Contents-Time-Problem and Its Order) a text that presented new perspectives about didactic questions on Engineering Education. The solution variants to the contents-time-problem offers possibilities to resolve permanent dilemma of increasing amount of knowledge and limited training time. Through very concrete scientific and technical examples will try to find solutions for this problem. This solutions are derived on a high level of abstraction and thus universal applicability. The solution variants had two main focuses (see Hortsch and Reese 2012): • the “contents restriction” (for example by modeling or didactic simplifications) and • the “qualification for/to a” contents manage (for example developing skills or using algorithms) Through Lichteneker’s administration other colleagues at the TU Dresden were able to continue researching and complementing key didactic elements of Engineering Education. In particular, the basic of didactic categories (e.g. goal, content, method), supporting organization forms (e.g. lecture and exercise, Wenzel 1983), laboratory internship (Malek 1980), as well as subject-specific Study processes (Geiger et al. 1975) (see Hortsch and Reese 2012).

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Since 1986 Prof. Lehmann directed the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy with focus at the research on the entire process of training and further education of engineers, and thus on the design of curricula for entire engineers degree programs at discipline and specializations level (see Hortsch and Reese 2012). The political change in East Germany had different effects and changes at TU Dresden. Prof. Eberhard Wenzel leaded since 1992 the School of Engineering Pedagogy at the Institute for Vocational Education. His scientific endeavors are aimed at researching the term “university-didactic thinking”. Wenzel defines “university didactics” as a special kind of didactic. In this way, he makes term explications in such a way that the basic concepts of the didactics of vocational education and training are transferred to the teaching and learning situations in the higher education sector. One of his merits is for example the transfer of the “goal” categories to the field of academic teaching. In this connection were specified the functions of classical organizational forms of academic teaching such as lecture, seminar, proseminar and exercise (see Hortsch and Reese 2012). Another important goal for Prof. Wenzel was maintaining or even expanding the traditions of engineering pedagogical teaching in national and international context. A further step in engineering pedagogical research was presented by the 1st Engineering Pedagogy Colloquium organized at the TU Dresden (February 2000) by Prof. Binger (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) and Prof. Hortsch (Faculty of Education). With participations of guests of all universities of the Free State of Saxony, the International Society of Engineering Education (IGIP), Siemens AG and guests from other universities was an important step to fix and present scientific results on Engineering Education. During the period of the professorship for Engineering Pedagogy by Prof. Wenzel were offered two-semester courses focused on “University didactics”. They aimed to establish a “didactic minimum qualification” on the academic staff and were positively evaluated by the academics at the TU Dresden (see Hortsch and Reese 2012). Since the retirement of Prof. Wenzel, the work, tradition, and innovation of the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy have been continued by the Chair of Didactics of Vocational Learning, under the leadership of Prof. Hortsch. The majority of the courses with matters in Engineering Pedagogy and didactics are currently taught by Dr. Kersten, Chair of Didactics of Vocational Education at the TU Dresden. In a synthesis of the contributions of the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy and Education over the years can be emphasized as main achievements: • The formation of the methodological basis for the synthesis of engineering sciences and pedagogy as the interacting factors of qualitative change in the training of specialists in technical disciplines; • Extending the tasks of engineering education in the form of the transition from the analysis of technical sciences and their specifics teaching methodologies; • The introduction of engineering into the problem area of the economy, global socioanthropological and psychological questions and the relationships between engineering subject and teaching methods; • The establishment of the methodological basis for the additional pedagogical training of graduate engineers at technical universities, as well as the introduction of the first internship in the engineering pedagogic training at the Technical University of Dresden (in 1958) with the subsequent acquisition of the certificate “Additional Examination in Pedagogy”.

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From the 1950s were founded and developed three “schools of Engineering Pedagogy” in Europe: the Dresden, the Prague and the Klagenfurt school of Engineering Pedagogy (see Rüütmann and Kipper 2016). It is important to mention that the Schools for Engineering Education in Austria and Czechoslovakia were founded based on the theoretical and practical achievements of the Dresden’s workgroup. The experiences of these three European schools of engineering pedagogy became the theoretical basis for the founding of IGIP (International Society of Engineering Pedagogy) in 1972 in Klagenfurt, Austria. The main initiatives in the field of engineering pedagogy of the Dresden School, in cooperation with represents of the Prague and the Klagenfurt schools, have significantly influenced the formation of the specific characteristics of the international movement in this area, which is concretized by the worldwide activities of IGIP and IFEES (International Federation of Engineering Education Societies) and other organizations.

2 Needs-Oriented Engineering Pedagogy 2.1

The Approach of the Dresden School on Needs-Oriented Engineering Pedagogy

At the development of the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy can be recognized different contributions. On the one hand could be clarified that Engineering Pedagogy, in a traditional view of higher education didactics, is a target group oriented design of teaching and learning processes in academic Engineering Education. Moreover, Engineering Education at TU Dresden is also aimed at future engineers, for instance at the design of social-communicative processes in the leadership of engineers. From this point of view, in the last 20 years, have been developed different courses that prepare future engineers for their tasks in the areas of employee management, team development, conflict management, problem-solving processes as well as the design of informative, explanatory and argumentative communication processes. In this way, it is possible to recognize research processes for the Engineering Education and Pedagogy that are geared to different demands and, at the same time, needs to be covered for different factors. Kersten (2015) proposes a differentiation between four different factors that influence and condition (demands) the Engineering Education: (i) the economic and production sectors of a country, (ii) engineering sciences, (iii) society and culture of the country and (iv) the individuals who study engineering (see Kersten et al. 2015): • Economy. The labour market is a window that shows the demands of production and services. The labour market of a region has a strong relationship with the structure of the economy. Concerning this, the relation between industry, agriculture, and service has the same importance than the development of different sectors in industry, trade, and service. These factors determine decisive the demand for qualified engineers and the characteristic of their qualifications, for the present and the future. The specific demands on the employees concerning their required qualifications, abilities, skills, knowledge and experiences are determined by the character of professional work in the structures of production and service.

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• Society. Engineering Education and Higher Education is part of a social and political system. In so far, Engineering Education has to meet the demands and needs of the society. These demands are determined by political systems, cultural developments, the history and the development of the society, ideologies, religions and concluding from it, by values, norms, views and attitudes. The term “demandorientation” contains accordingly also the social demands. The individual development of social adjusted values, norms, views and attitudes is the socialization part of the Engineering Education. • Science. Production processes and professional labor are influenced by the development of technique and technology and thus by the development of related sciences. Technological advances and the new knowledge generated are constantly observed, as well as the optimization of systems and production processes based on scientific knowledge that sometimes must be reformulated. All this generates permanent demands and needs to update knowledge the verification and new uses of them. • Student. The design of teaching and learning processes in Engineering Education has to correspond with the individual characteristics of the personality of learners: pre-conditions of the learners, age-specific psychological characteristics, individual values, norms, attitudes and needs of learners.

Influence factors of Engineering Education Economy

Society

Science

Teacher

Student

-Structures of

-Social

-Matters of

-Professional

-Individual

Production

needs and

research and

competen-

with capabil-

and services

social values

research meth-

cies and

ities, needs

-Professional

-idea of

ods in engi-

knowledge

and interests

work

“man in

-Pedagogical

-Demands on

society”

neering sciences -Development

cies

labour market

competen-

of techniques

Demands and Needs on Engineering Education related to planning and organization Fig. 1. Influence factors of Engineering Education

To these factors must be added a key-factor to the learning process in engineering: the teacher. Since Lohmann (1951) to the actually has been looked with special emphasis the domain of the academic staff on the specific knowledge of each area of the engineering sciences but also of the knowledge, methods and tools for its teaching. Figure 1 shows a systematization of the five factors that generate the demands and needs in the Engineering Education.

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The university didactic perspective in Engineering Pedagogy works for the qualification on academic teaching of the staff in the engineering sciences. In addition to demand-oriented further education courses on Engineering Pedagogy and didactic fields of activity (for example laboratory didactics, control and evaluation of study results and intercultural communication), has been developed a range of courses for university teachers that builds on the requirements of designing teaching and learning processes in the field of Engineering Pedagogy prepared specially for the academic Engineering Education. 2.2

Some Projects on Needs-Oriented Engineering Pedagogy Related to the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy

E-Didactic Project For the project E-Didactic a team headed by Prof. Hortsch and Dr. Kersten (Chair of Didactics of Vocational Learning, TU Dresden), developed a needs-oriented training program in 2010 to academic staff for engineering faculties of Saxony. This program was composed of 4 module areas with a total of 12 study modules, with a scope of 20 Credits Points. In the first stage of the project, a research of pedagogical and didactic needs in the engineering faculties was developed. For this purpose, were implemented individual surveys, a focus group with the academic staff and class observations. The main results obtained in this research regarding needs and requirements were related to: (i) use of special forms of teaching and learning in academic engineering education, (ii) specific problems of designing learning control processes, (iii) development of a positive feedback culture, (iv) structuring of evaluation of courses, (v) didactic basics of planning, implementation, and analysis of academic teaching, (vi) design, selection, and use of didactic media, (vii) design of communicative processes in academic teaching among others (see Köhler et al. 2013). Goals and contents of the study program were determined together with the engineering science staff of the University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz in a needs analysis and led to the following module structure (see Table 1). The study program is accredited by the International Monitoring Committee of the International Society for Engineering Pedagogy (IGIP) as a study course for the certification INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING EDUCATOR “ING.PAED.IGIP”, and certified by the board of the Engineering Pedagogy Science Society (IPW) as a degree program for the ENGINEER EDUCATOR (IPW). PEDING and STING Projects Continuing with the objectives proposed by Prof. Wenzel (internationalization of the Engineering Pedagogy), the Chair of Didactics of Vocational Learning of the TU Dresden headed by Prof. Hortsch established since 90’s work proposals in Engineering Pedagogy and Education with various universities and organizations in Asia (in Vietnam and China for example) and other countries. Since 2014 works the TU Dresden in cooperation with Chilean universities in two projects with the objective of strengthening Engineering Education.

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Table 1. Modules overview of the training program “ING.PAED.IGIP” Training program INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING EDUCATOR “ING.PAED.IGIP” I. Engineering didactics fundamentals Units

Qualification goals

I.1. Design of teaching- learning processes in engineering sciences

The students are able to design teaching and learning 30 processes in the engineering education according to target groups based on a pedagogical scientific ways

15

I.2. Didactic media for teaching in The students have knowledge of the conceptualization of 18 engineering didactical media, the functions of didactic media in teaching and learning processes, the didactical media action’s areas and basic design approaches

45

27

3

I.3. Communication

The students are able to conduct, purposefully and appropriately, communicative processes in their teaching activities on the basis of pedagogical scientific ways and in consideration of personality characteristics of the communication partners

22

46

22

3

I.4. Control and Evaluation of the learning outcomes in Engineering Education

The students are able to design control and evaluation processes of learning outcomes (qualifications, competencies) on the basis of scientific findings

30

40

20

3

FA 20

IW 15

WP 10

CP 1,5

II. Forms of structuring the teaching-learning processes in university contexts Units Qualification’s goal II.5. Lectures (theoretical courses) The students are able to plan, perform and follow up the lecture/seminar/consultation courses according to the desired qualification goals

F*A** I*W** W*P** C*P 1,5

II.6. Laboratory practical training/self-study

The students are able to design teaching and learning processes in laboratory work in exercises as well as in self-study on the basis of scientific findings purposeful

15

20

10

1,5

II.7. Engineering internships, written reports, research colloquium

The students are able to plan, carry out and follow up on 18 the academic course types Engineering Practical/Documentation/Research Colloquium according to the desired qualification objectives

15

12

1,5

FA 18

IW 15

WP 12

CP 1,5

21

13

11

1,5

Qualification’s goal FA The students are able independently to apply schemata for 4,5 documenting, reflecting and evaluating exemplary teaching events

IW 4,5

WP 6

CP 0,5

IV.11. Classes observation

The students are able independently a class to document, 12 analyze, evaluate and reflect in order to achieve a continuous professionalization of their teaching activities

8

10

1

IV.12 Final colloquium

3 The students are able independently to plan a final colloquim with the help of a planning scheme, then carry it out and finally evaluate it

12

0,5

III. Determining objectives and contents of engineering studies Units Qualification’s goal III.8. Determination of the study The students are able to determine independently the programme objectives course and study module objectives for engineering courses in their engineering specialization III.9. Determination of the engineering study programme contents IV. Practical module Units IV.10. Case discussion

The students are able independently to derive, structure and present the corresponding study program or study module content from the study program objectives

* FA: face-to-face activities; IW: independent work; PW: work on project/tests; CP: credits points ** in hours

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The aim of the first project “Engineering Didactics at Chilean Universities” (PEDING-Project) is the development and testing of training modules for teaching qualifications of teaching staff in academic Engineering Education based in the IGIP Curriculum offered for the TU Dresden. In the first stage of this project, Gormaz (2014) systematized and operationalized in clusters categories and indicators, which later were used in the recollection instrument on teaching needs of the engineering faculty of the three Chilean universities: Universidad Autónoma de Chile (UA), Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG) and Universidad de Talca (UTAL) (see Gormaz and Kersten 2014). The basis for this work was an analytical adaptation of the instruments and research results of the E-Didactic project about the training requirements of lecturers at engineering faculties from Saxony (Germany) (see Köhler et al. 2013), In general the instrument and indicators seek to obtain information about: (i) characteristics of lecturers (years of experience, subject matter, etc.), (ii) experience and needs related to engineering didactic fundamentals, (iii) requirements for the structuration of Teaching Learning forms in a university context, and the setting of objectives and contents of an engineering degree, and, (iv) identification of strengths and weaknesses, together with the conditions to enroll in a training course. The results of this research about the needs in Engineering Education were used in the development of the training modules and created the bases of a training course offered in 2018 in Chile, modelled from the learning module structure according to the IGIP (International Society for Engineering Education) standards and the TU Dresden, Faculty of Education. The trainings course was offered in blended learning modality and has a participation of more than 50 academics from different regions of Chile. The aim of the second Project “Strengthening engineering training at Chilean universities through practice partnerships” (STING-Project) is the development and testing of training modules for students (either for electrical or mechanical engineers) and teaching qualifications of teaching staff in academic Engineering Education based in demands and employment- requirements of German and Chilean companies. For this reason was developed a questionnaire by the TU Dresden and the USACH as part of a stage of information gathering to obtain the strategic positioning and future development of the participant enterprises. The goal of the application of this questionnaire is to know the opinion of strategic staff of the companies regarding the actually needs and the projected future scenario for engineers, and the type of “technology transferences” between university-company. The results of this survey were used in the development of two training modules for students at the USACH. Some results obtained with the surveys applied to the academics of three Faculties of Engineering and the strategic Staff (experts) of seven companies are presented below (see Hortsch et al. 2019): • Perception and needs in Engineering Pedagogy and Education at the universities Regarding the need for different skills and pedagogical tools for university teaching in engineering careers, was asked “How necessary do you consider the following aspects of Engineering Pedagogy in relation to your teaching experience?” For this section, 28 aspects were considered based on criteria and results of the E-Didactic

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project (see Gormaz and Kersten 2014), being the most relevant those related to the evaluation methods, among which stand out with more than 95% of the preferences aspects such as: “Evaluation and assessment of achieved learning” and “Knowledge about design for effective measurement of achieved learning”. Then with more than 87% of the preferences are “Structuring of teaching-learning processes in the scientific training of engineers”, “Use of didactic resources and information and communication technologies” (ICTs). The results by university do not suffer major modifications. Some discussed aspects present a great difference between the institutions. In 3 aspects, the UA has preferences above 80%, while UMAG and UTAL are under 62%: “Recognition and resolution of conflicts within the classroom”, “Planning of activities for individual study” and “Analysis of the personal scope of engineering in Chile”. Another aspect where there is a marked difference is “Knowledge about strategies to support professional practices and independent research activities” where the UA and UMAG have preferences over 85% while UTAL does not reach 57%. These differences may be due to the different programs given at each University, as well as to the institutional and social context and to the training given to the participants. • Perception and needs in Engineering Pedagogy and Education at the companies Regarding the need for different knowledge, skills and technological tools for the teaching in engineering careers, the strategic Staff (experts) of seven companies answered to the question “What are the most important competences for engineers?” The results are presented in Fig. 2 and show many different competences like “leadership”, “team working” and “autonomy” are the most valuable skills for companies, with 87.5%, 87.5% and 75% of the preferences, respectively. Another question was oriented to the importance of innovation and research. The companies were asked “How relevant is for you that engineers students have experience in innovation and research project through their university time?”. The 37.5% gave 5 out of 5 points (most relevant) to these characteristics, while a 37.5% gave out of 4 points and 25% gave 3 out of 3 points. Therefore, the tendency to appreciate the experience of students in innovation and research projects is noticeable. In relation to needs about technical software for electrical and mechanical engineers, the most popular option was Microsoft Office, which includes Excel, Power-Point, Word, and Outlook, with five preferences (93%). Then, AutoCAD was the second option (86%), and finally “Project” comes in the third place. Figure 2 systematized the results of the two surveys on needs in Engineering Pedagogy and Education in Chile.

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Perception and needs in Engineering Pedagogy and Education at Universities and companies (PEDING and STING projects)

Fig. 2. Needs in Engineering Pedagogy and Education in Chile

3 Conclusions The contributions and impacts of the scientific developments generated at the Dresden School of Engineering Pedagogy over the years are considerably. The conceptions, methodologies and tools developed by Lohmann, Lichtenecker, Lehmann, Wenzel, Hortsch and Kersten among others have been fundamental to understand and generate better teaching and learning processes inside the engineering faculty of the TU Dresden and other faculties of the world. In this article we have focused specifically on the need oriented perspective of the Engineering Pedagogy that as mentioned above appeals to collect needs of five “actors” (economy, society, science, university teachers and students) to planning, develop and evaluate a better engineering learning processes. From the results obtained from the “needs” surveys it is possible to conclude, that the academic communities of the studied engineering faculties, tend to converge on the pedagogical capacities that are required to train the future engineers. German and Chilean academics from different engineering faculties are willing to train and incorporate systematic knowledge and skills, based on the tools of Engineering Pedagogy, to enhance the skills they already possess and thus improve the strategies and methods of teaching directed to its students. From the results of the survey of the E-Didactic and PEDING project were identified many different needs in the field of engineering didactics: (i) “Evaluation and assessment of the students’ learning achievements”, (ii) “Organization of teaching and learning processes for the scientific formation of engineers”, (iii) “Theoretical and practical knowledge about the didactics for the teaching and learning process in engineering”, (iv) “Knowledge about how to design

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effective measurements of the learning accomplishments”, and (v) “Use of didactic resources and of information and communication technologies (ICTs)”. As shown on the results of the STING survey, the companies identified many needs for the education process of engineers in relation to current and future industrial requirements. In general, the main needs in Engineering Education for the companies were: (i) to increase team working during student’s careers, (ii) to renew high-tech equipment to improve laboratories and thesis projects, (iii) to increase the link company-university through the development of joint projects, (iv) to incorporate new technologies into classical Engineering Education, and (v) to promote applied research. Additionally were identified for example that: (vi) engineers must have the analytic capability, and they must be able to learn on their own, (vii) the communication company-client is fundamental and must be considered in Engineering Education, (viii) team working and leadership are fundamental either for junior or senior engineers, and (ix) because of the characteristics of Chile, engineers must know how mining industry works and the security regulations. A need oriented Engineering Pedagogy seeks to establish a teaching and learning process that is better focused on the context where it develops. This process can start meeting needs of the labor market, the society, or another “factors”: but everything should be oriented to facilitate the development of skills and acquisition of knowledge by the future engineers, based on appropriate scientific knowledge with the appropriate pedagogical methods in the context of the 21st century.

References Creswell, J.W.: Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Method Approaches, pp. 217–219. Sage Publications, University of Nebraska, Lincoln (2003) Geiger, K., Klose, J., Lichtenecker, F., Wenzel, E.: Die didaktische Projektierung lehrfachgebundener Studienprozesse als Aufgabe und als Tätigkeit des Fachschullehrers. Studien zur Hochschulentwicklung, Berlin (1975) Gormaz, D., Kersten, S.: Zur Analyse der ingenieurpädagogischen Weiterbildungsbedarfe von Lehrende. In: Projektbericht DAAD 2014. TU Dresden, Institut für Berufspädagogik, Dresden (2014) Heidegger, G., Rauner, F.: Berufe 2000: Berufliche Bildung für die industrielle Produktion der Zukunft, Düsseldorf, 20 (1991) Hortsch, H., Gormaz-Lobos, D., Galarce-Miranda, C., Kersten, S.: Needs-oriented engineering pedagogy - research projects in Chilean Universities. In: Auer, M.E., Tsiatsos, T. (eds.) The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education, ICL 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 917, pp. 741–753. Springer, Cham (2019) Hortsch, H., Reese, U.: Historische Aspekte Ingenieurpädagogischer Lehre und Forschung an der TU Dresden. In: Hortsch, H., Kersten, S., Köhler, M. (eds.) Renaissance der Ingenieurpädagogik – Entwicklungslinien in Europäischen Raum. Referate der 6. IGIP Regionaltagung, pp. 9–25 (2012) Kersten, S., Simmert, H., Gormaz, D.: Engineering pedagogy at Universities in Chile - a research and further education project of TU Dresden and Universidad Autónoma de Chile. In: Expanding Learning Scenarios. EDEN Conference, Barcelona (2015)

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Köhler, M., Umlauft, T., Kersten, S., Simmert, H.: Projekt Ingenieurdidaktik an Sächsischen Hochschulen - E-didaktik. Projektabschlussbericht. Dresdner Beiträge zur Berufspädagogik, 33, Dresden (2013) Lehmann, G., Malek, R.: Entwicklung der Ingenieurpädagogik an der TU Dresden 1951 bis 1991. TU Dresden, Dresden (1991) Lohmann, H.: Die Technik und ihre Lehre. Ein Forschungsteilprogramm für eine wissenschaftliche Ingenieurpädagogik. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschriften der TU Dresden, pp. 602–621 (1954) Malek, R.: Die Gestaltung des Laborpraktikums in der sozialistischen Ingenieurausbildung aus hochschuldidaktischer Sicht. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge Technische Universität Dresden, 30, Dresden (1980) Melezinek, A.: Ingenieurpädagogik – Praxis der Vermittlung technischen Wissens. Springer, Wien (1999) Neuman, W.: Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Pearson, München (2011) Rüütmann, T., Kipper, H.: Klagenfurt school of engineering pedagogy by Adolf Melezinek as the basis of teaching engineering. Int. J. Eng. Pedagog. 6(3), 10–18 (2016) Wolffgramm, H.: Technische Systeme und Allgemeine Technologie, Bad Salzdetfurth (1994)

Cybertraining: Activities and Time Scheduling. A Case Study Dorin Isoc(B) and Teodora Surubaru Group for Reform and University Alternative (GRAUR), Cluj-Napoca, Romania [email protected] http://www.graur.org

Abstract. The extension of e-learning is unavoidable but the ways in which this is done differ. One new way is focused on changing the working relationship, more specifically, the teacher-learner relationship. The purpose of this paper is to detail technical elements and principles of a cybernetic training (CyT r) system that was developed and installed by the authors at www.cybertrainer.online and it is based on a method of learning by adaptive networking using a cybernetic trainer. The method assumes that students build problems that directly relate with their lack of knowledge regarding the topic. The built problems are further solved by students. The method continues with a ranking stage of problems opportunity, and a solutions usability stage. The stages are coordinated by a software that actively connects all the group students. The software monitors the learning activity, manages the database and evaluates automatically the students. The whole ensemble of CyT r brings a series of advantages to the school and to the learning activity, including a reduction of at least 40% on teacher’s activity. Keywords: Critical thinking · Learning by adaptive networking Adaptive networking · Cybernetic training · Training plan · Self-adaptivity · Cybernetic trainer

1

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Introduction

The introduction and development of e-learning meant, without any doubt, a new direction towards which the school can now look with hope. Nevertheless hope does not always mean accomplishments. There are many reasons to be taken into consideration. Very serious is the lack of interest in making e-learning a way that would change the core school in its essence. All the means of new computer technologies have been, in fact, added or included in the old patterns of the school. In fact, school has remained the same collection of “hand made” means of building in which the teacher is the incontestable artist that gives value to the institution and the learner/student is the amorphous object that needs forming. A uniform view is created on the learner/student. This view ignores the fact c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020  M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 601–613, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_57

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that the learner/student is growing, is formed and becomes, in a changing environment, through means that are more and more extraneous to the influences developed by the schools. All these reasons and themes are treated, at most, theoretically. Before addressing some issues of interest, we insist that most researches regarding the analyses and developing of e-learning methods are dedicated ([2,5,8]). Thus, the new solutions are proven to be in fact refurbishments of previous situations. In practice, this means that the learning process does not take into account the diversity of learners’ knowledge level facing to any new challenge, be it a lesson, a course or any topic. The lack of students’ initial homogeneity makes it that any subsequent approach will deviate the learning outcomes and performances from the expected ones. Moreover, any lack of initial homogeneity converts into a new lack of homogeneity, with increased intensity. The purpose of this research is the analysis of some details regarding a complex service developed for learning/teaching. The complexity of the service, called “cybernetic training” or “cybertraining” is argued in that it includes a new learning method called “learning by adaptive networking“ and an original cybernetic mechanism implemented as a computer application under the name of “cybernetic trainer” or a “cybertrainer”. The approach of treating both components together is justified by the necessity of a technical infrastructure dedicated to ensure that the interactions of the teaching method are materialized as a whole. The second chapter of the paper details the CyT r principles. These are analyzed in relation to the requirements of learner-centered teaching and critical thinking principles. The activities and interactions of the service occur in time as detailed in a case study, in the third chapter. The fourth chapter is dedicated to effects and interpretations and contains an integrated analysis of both functional and constructive elements that were previously presented. The main focus will be on justifying the need of cybernetic trainer and an early analysis of economical effects that can be taken into consideration when using the CyT r service.

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Cybernetic Training Principles

CyT r or the “learning by adaptive networking with cybernetic trainer” service is a concept introduced by Isoc and Surubaru and presented for the first time in [4]. There are previous researches that, without a doubt, can be linked with principle and functional aspects of CyT r. Thus Dost´al talks in [3] about “inquiry-based instruction” and when he describes the “open-inquiry”, the author implies that the student could participate, not only in building the problem, but to its analysis and solving too. It is worth noting that a built problem can generate multiple different problems within a potential discussion. However, this teaching method is only possible within a learning environment under a teacher’s guidance.

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An Ad-Hoc, but Post Hoc Comparison

As a solution to the need of student-centered learning described by [9] an analyses of the requirements and the way these are approached and solved is made. Change 1 Suggested by Weimer: The Balance of Power. In the conventional school the trainer is the one that sets up the rules of the “game” and the learner’s only responsibility is to obey them. Given this situation, the student is unable to have initiative and full responsibility for his own options. Design Concepts for Cybertrainer Service. The teacher intervenes in the learning process only by guiding the process and by recommending the specific bibliography. It is obvious that this is a professional intervention and it is dictated by the teacher position inside of the organization. Subsequently, the teacher can only intervene when: i. It is on the same position as the student, as a virtual student. ii. It is on an approval - decision making position, when he appears as an arbitrator. Note: A justification of this position, associated with the teacher, is offered by Akella [1] who states that learning by networking is only possible if there is equality between partners. Change 2 Suggested by Weimer: The function of Content. It is suggested that more than the content itself, it is necessary to displace the goal of learning from “content covering” to “content using”. Design Concepts for Cybertrainer Service. Here we made a clear distinction between two aspects. CyT r is oriented by excellence to building and solving problems that form a real “treatment pool” for development. Concretely, a built problem can always be the origin of a chain of problems that are connected by topic and the students’ interest. The whole chain of problems is always specific and custom to the level of the learning group. Each time, the student finds himself in a situation where he can learn from his own problem building activity or from the suite of built problems, just like he can learn from the offered solutions or the inspected ones. Change 3 Suggested by Weimer: The Role of the Teacher. The occurrence of the power balance inside the learning group can be a starting point for rethinking the teachers role. The premises are not favorable as traditionally any school is seen through what the teacher can do so that the student can achieve its goals.

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Design Concepts for Cybertrainer Service. Regarding this change, our position is more sharp. The student-centered learning depends essentially on the image of the learning content within the learning process. If the purpose of the learning process is given, then the evolution of the process is specific to each student of the training group. This way, the teacher cannot have any other role than the one assigned to him. In our opinion, it is essential that the teachers role is, from the beginning, well provided, well declared. This assumes that the role is not optional, but mandatory. Consequently the role will not be assured through learning to teach but by using technical means, unambiguous and without the possibility of being infringed. Change 4 Suggested by Weimer: The Responsibility for Learning. A realistic analysis identifies unequivocally the fact that the responsibility of learning goes to the student. In the end, the research stops on the learning climate in order to replace discipline learning to the good of individual responsibility. Design Concepts for Cybertrainer Service. In our opinion, a person’s responsibility cannot be subject of discussions or interpretations. When we talk about training is all the more improper. In our research the responsibility is replaced with the real needs of the individual relative to an objective, be it training. It is to be emphasized that it is not about some learning but learning with a stated objective, be it a technical book or a chapter in physics. Towards such an objective, the student brings his own baggage of information, that is never empty, and an obvious lack of knowledge and experiences. Students own baggage of knowledge is known only by them. Keep in mind the fact that we are only discussing the voluntary acts of learning. This implies that the student knows what he wants and can get, to say from a school or a teacher: learning framework. Change 5 Suggested by Weimer: The Purpose and Processes of Evaluation. Currently, grading is seen as a confirmation of learning. There is no substantial evidence that the learning and its image, the grading, are simultaneously and compulsory ensured. Design Concepts for Cybertrainer Service. We agree that currently, evaluation and grading are artificial; each teacher chooses objective and relevant references for a grading system. The evaluation method that we implemented is based on efficiency principles: i. Learning can only be appreciated by adding all students’ conscious efforts for reaching their proposed goals. ii. Any learning effort has a purpose expressed through opportunity and usability. The efforts opportunity is based on students’ interest towards the activity

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set in the learning process. The efforts usability is measured or assessed by the extent in which a learning activity is satisfying. 2.2

Consequences in the Framework of Technical Design

CyT r represents an ensemble that uses both learning by adaptive networking and the cybernetic trainer. Learning by adaptive networking is an evolution of problem solving-centered learning. The essential difference is that both problems and solutions are built or offered by students to the learning group. Cybernetic trainer is an abstract, dedicated multi-user machine, which offers the framework that the teacher-user can use for the learning activity, including means of social accountability and evaluation, using automatic grading of students activities. The CyT r ensures learning regardless of topic or language. The responsibility for the learning topic, through orientation, summary and quality, goes to the teacher-user. The main technical features of cybernetic teacher are oriented to support all the activities of the learning group for generating, managing and evaluating the built problems and offered solutions related to the bibliography and a given learning topic. Built problems and offered solutions are generically called contributions of the learning process, respectively of the learning session. The cybertraining assumes a set of working rules as: i. Any contribution is built and expressed only in writing. To account for the demands of critical thinking [6,7] for both actions, building problems and offering solutions, the teacher gives a framework. ii. Contributions building assumes individual activities achieved in given time period. iii. The contributions are anonymous throughout the training session. The teacher, on the other hand, has full access to the identity of the contributions of the authors. iv. Any student can build any number of problems and solve any number of the built problems. v. No learner is allowed to solve or assess its own problems. vi. Every built problem is given an opportunity degree in relation to the learners’ expectations. These opportunity degrees are given over a determined period of time, through anonymous and individual votes. vii. Every solution is given a usability degree in relation to the extent to which it responds to covering the lack of knowledge identified and expressed by a certain individual that is interested and qualified. Note that a student cannot vote for the usability of the solutions that he proposed. viii. The individual learning activity is evaluated through the capacity of identifying and building problems, as well as through the capacity of solving proposed problems.

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ix. The work elementary is the training session. At the end of each learning session, every member of the learning group receives a score and a session report. x. The training is done through learners’ interactions, supported by a specialized system of planning, monitoring and evaluation of individual activities. xi. All training sessions are divided by the teacher in five stages with specific duration and activities, strictly defined and monitored. These stages are: 1-building problems stage (Tpb ); 2-problem grading stage (Tpq ); 3-offering solutions to built problems stage (Tps ); 4-solution assessing stage (Tpe ); 5-individual valuation stage (Tpv ). xii. The whole training activity is characterized by the values of learning affinity indexes. The learning affinity indexes are the opportunity index of built problems (Vopt ) and the usability index (Vusa ) of solutions offered for built problems. These indexes are determined in relation to the contributions of the training session. xiii. In each training session, students activity is materialized through building problems followed by the analysis and ranking of the problems opportunity in relation to learners’ interests. Further, the activity continues with solving the built problems followed by the analysis and ranking of the solutions usability in relation to students’ expectations. Both the ranking and the evaluation are done through secret and documented vote of the training group members. xiv. CyT r does not contradict, nor eliminates any of the conventional training methods promoted by the teacher or the school.

3

Students Activities and Time Management

Through applying learning by adaptive networking with a cybernetic trainer, the learning process is built and seen as a set of activities that are developing, interconnected and are evaluated in two dimensions. The first dimension of the learning process is time. All events and activities are connected through time, which becomes an inherent requirement of the learning process. The second dimension is the magnitude of individuals’ personality. Each activity has one author that is fixed and known by the management and monitoring system and is unknown by the other members of the training team. The time component implies one side that is controlled by the teacher. It defines working periods and has the responsibility to guide the learners through the training process using the time component. The exemplification of the learning process temporal dimension is made based on the analysis of the description in Fig. 1. The case presented in Fig. 1, which will be the bases for the case study, involves a learning group that consists of three learners U 1, U 2, respectively U 3. Subsequent to the launch of the training session through making available the topic and minimal references set, the problems building stage, Tpb , is enabled.

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X

X1.1. X3.1

X2.1 X1.2

X3.2

0.00 U1

607

t t11

t12

U2

t

t21

U3

t

t31

t32

t

Tpb Fig. 1. Activities in problems building stage (Tpb ) for U 1, U 2, U 3.

During this stage, each learner acts according to their own interest and within a given time framework. From Fig. 1, is found that at the moment 0 < t11 < Tpb the learner U 1 formulates the problem X1.1, which is his first problem of interest. The notation t11 means that at this moment in time the problem, X1.1, was built. Same learner builds, at a different moment in time, t12 , the problem, X1.2, which is his second problem of interest. For the learner U 3 we note that he builds the problem X3.1 at a moment t11 < t31 < t12 . Using the same principles, the problems X2.1, respectively X3.2 are built. It is noted that the learners activity moments meet the condition 0 < t11 < t31 < t21 < t12 < t32 < Tpb . Between these moments in time there is only a succession relationship. A similar situation is found in the problem solving stage, Tps . Moving forward, the relation between problems, Xp.j, respectively solutions Rs.p.j and the time variable will not be used and is not relevant with regards to the purpose of training. Dealing with contributions, specifically, the problems resulted from learners’ activity will be dealt with as in Table 1, where “X” states for “occurred”. Table 1. Problems’ building stage for U 1, U 2, and U 3 respectively. Student Problem X1.1 X1.2 X2.1 X3.1 X3.2 U1 U2 U3

X

X X X

X

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Case Study

In two out of the five stages of the training session, the learners activity proves its quantitative interaction with the working topic and the stimulation encouraged by the learning group, in other two stages these interaction becomes qualitative, through qualified vote. In the following there is a case study in which, a description of the way to identify contribution and to evaluate them, is proposed. For a better understanding of the description synthesized in Table 2 an explanation for the symbols used is necessary. As a rule, members of the training group are marked with U 1, U 2 and U 3, respectively. Contributions of the training session are marked with Xp.c respectively Rr.p.c, where p represents the serial number of the problem proponent, c, respectively r represents the serial number of the solver of the problem Xp.c. For example through X3.1 is understood the problem c = 1 introduced by the proposing learner p = 3, and by R2.4.2 is understood the solution offered by the solver r = 2 of the problem c = 2 introduced by the proposing learner p = 4. The activity of scoring or ranking of built problems is made using the value of the opportunity parameter, O. This parameter is associated through vote by the members of the training group and is used to characterize the opportunity of problem Xp.c. One example like, O3.2.1 talks about the opportunity value assigned by learner q = 3 to the first problem, c = 1, built by the proponent p = 2. In Table 2, O1.2.1 becomes, through simplification O1, notation valid along with column indication. The activity of evaluating the solutions offered to the built problems is made through the value of the usability index, A. This Ae.r.p.c index is associated by vote, by any of the members of the training group in order to characterize the extent to which the solution of Rr.p.c responds to the assessor’s exigency. In an example, A2.1.3.2, an evaluator e = 2 attributes a usability value to the solution provided by the solver r = 1 to the problem c = 2 built by the proponent p = 3. Simplified as in Table 2, the usability A2.1.3.2 becomes A2.1, a valid notation inside the X3.2 issue column, and the table associated with U 1 student activity. In the same context, R1.2.1 becomes R1 in the X2.1 problem column and R1.3.2 becomes also R1 but in the X3.2 problem column. These simplifications are valid only as a tabular representation possibility and require a correct interpretation of the situations. It is obvious that all restrictions are automatically managed by the system. This is to say that both symbols in service panel, and the restriction of adding values are made automatically, no action is required from the user. In Table 2, the stages of the training session can be identified: T rSpg – problem building stage; T rSpq – problem scoring stage; T rSps – offering solutions to proposed problems stage; T rSse – solution grading stage, respectively T rSiv – individual capitalization stage. Every stage is characterized by an effect, result or synthesis through a parameter.

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Table 2. Events and parameters during the training session for the U 1 student. Stage

Problem X1.1 X1.2 X2.1

X3.1 X3.2

T rSpq Problems’ opportunity voting N oR N oR O1 = V 7 T rSps N oA N oA R1

N oA R1

T rSse Solutions’ usability voting N oR N oR A2.1 = V 9 N oL A2.1 = V 5 A3.1 = V 7 A3.1 = V 8 T rSiv

In connection with the description of Table 2, together with similar information referring the activities of student U 1 with contributions (X1.1, R1.2.1, R1.3.2), U 2 with contributions (X2.1, R2.1.1, R2.3.2), and U 3 with contributions (X3.1, X3.2, R3.1.2, R3.2.1) respectively, it is possible to synthesize the situation as in Table 3. In tables are used the notations of NoR (from “No Right”) for the interdiction of a proponent student to score a problem, with NoA (from “No Action”) for the lack of a student expected action, with NoL (from “No Logic”) when the student has no reason to pronounce where a colleague did not act, with NoS (from “No Score”) when the problem had no reported solution. Table 3. Synthesis of the most relevant final information of the training session. Index

Problem X1.1

X1.2

X2.1

X3.1

X3.2

Opportunity (V 4 + V 4)/2 (V 7 + V 7)/2 (V 7 + V 4)/2 (V 7 + V 8)/2 V 6 Usability

(V7+V5)/2

(V7+V8)/2

(V 9 + V 7)/2 (N oS)/2 (V 4 + V 7)/2

(V 5 + V 8)/2 (V 3 + V 5)/2

The values of opportunity and usability parameters are related to an unique scale that is characterized mainly through monotony. The simplest example of monotonic numeric scale can be: V e ∈ [0.0 . . . 1.0]. Taking this range, the intermediate values are, for example: V 1 = 0.1; V 2 = 0.2; V 3 = 0.3; V 4 = 0.4; V 5 = 0.5; V 6 = 0.6; V 7 = 0.7; V 8 = 0.8; V 9 = 0.9; V 10 = 1.0. If associating values is relatively easy and not unique, it should be mentioned that along with the assignment of values a stage of interpretation is also required. In this case the higher the index value, the closer it is to meeting the criteria. As an example, let’s say that the opportunity value is O2.3.1 = 0.7 relative to another opportunity value regarding the same contribution, respectively X3.1

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like O1.3.1 = 0.5 shows that student U 2 appreciates that the problem X3.1 is more opportune than student U 1. The description done on the training session allows the construction of the individual numerical score for each member of the training group. The global score Sc results from the evaluation of all activities carried by the members of the training group. The image of individual behavior is shown partially through the value of opportunity, Scopt , partially through the value of usability, Scusa , like in Table 3 to which a set of individual rewards, Rw is added. Under these conditions, the global score, associated to a k given student activity, is described using the relation (1). Sc(k) = Scopt (k) ⊗ Scusa (k) + Rw(k)

5

(1)

Outcomes, Evaluations, and Interpretations

It is a reality that the object of this research is a very complex subject. It is enough to find that the concepts of pedagogy are interlinked with those used in organizing the teaching activity, with details of developing a software, with details to evaluate and describe the information inside of a learning service. 5.1

About the Novelty of the Cybernetic Training

A synthesis of the analysis highlights: i. A new relationship between student and teacher. We have practically, described, a training method where finds a new kind of connection between teacher and student. Achieved as a cybernetic machine, the new connection is limited to guidance and has a small number of interventions or influences. ii. A new training method is inserted. The new training method is seemingly independent with regards to the teacher-student relationship. The new features related the way of approaching knowledge, the way to connect the main participants and the way to evaluate and grade the learning activity. Under the current conditions we agree to call it “learning by adaptive networking” to point out that learning can appear and exist by developing an ad-hoc active network among the members of the training group. The basics of the teaching method are represented by: (b1) the attitude towards learning, (b2) generalized introducing of peer-review based on two affinity indexes of learning, opportunity and usability, through quantitative voting in all situations, (b3) the existence of a mechanism of automated evaluation of training with reference to activities conducted by the learner. 5.2

Risks of Cybernetic Training

Risk evaluation for CyT r is made with reference to the conditions that affect the quality of learning.

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i. Relative dependency of learning quality on the learning group component. It is obvious that the problem-solution mechanism is the one which influences the quality of learning. In fact, the quality of learning is not dependent to the quality of the group members as much as by their initial diversity. This can be seen in terms of human quality, quality of training, with which learners enter the training process, and the initial level of qualification, Paradoxically the initial quality is not the one that counts most. ii. The optimal size of the learning group affects the quality of learning. From the previous presentation we do not have sufficient arguments to detail this subject. There are three further statements made which are related to the knowledge of the technical mechanism of the service. At this point, we still appreciate that the nominal number of students in the training group is 11 . . . 15 people and that the recommended minimum number is of three people. 5.3

Economical Estimations of Exploiting the Cybertraining

CyT r, that is of learning by adaptive networking with a cybernetic trainer represents an ensemble of pedagogical methods and services of intelligent monitoring of the activity. This type of association results in activity automation with a great social impact and presents an economic side that is difficult to be avoided or neglected. In concrete terms, the functional aspects that represent the meaning for determining the economical efficiency of the activity are: i. Training group is limited to a number of 11 . . . 15 learners. Optimum is when the study group is smaller and the training quality is superior. ii. The number of training groups coordinated by a teacher is, in theory, unlimited. Practically, an approximate number of 5 groups each having 13 learners, in total 65 learners is considered to be a reasonable teaching load. An approximation allows estimating that the teachers work load should decrease by 40%. 5.4

About the Necessary and Sufficient Condition of Cybernetic Training

The methodological description is presented above, from a technical point of view, the learning by networking method cannot be used due to specific restrictive conditions. These conditions represent in fact elements of cybernetic trainer specification. i. Teaching activity is done concurrent, simultaneous or more correctly said in real time with all learners from the training group.

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ii. The CyT r enables all students from the training group to connect, at the same time. iii. The CyT r allows the evaluation of contributions through voting, based on the affinity of learning index values. iv. The CyT r provides monitoring of all learners actions and activities during the training session. v. The CyT r ensures the assessment of the overall activity.

6

Concluding Remarks

Building a training service adjusted to the current level of social and technological development implies a multitude of phases and requirements. First phase is building a pedagogical framework and a training methodology. Active learning by networking meets the most demanding requirements that will lead to a learner-centered teaching system. As a principle, learning by networking moves the center of attention from the knowledge assimilation process, in the form of building and solving problems, to the members of the learning group. Learning performance is appreciated through quantity, by the number of built problems and solutions offered, and the quality of learning is appreciated through problems opportunity and usability of solutions. The reporting of students vote is done at the request of each group member. The second phase implies building a machine that is able to coordinate the requirements of learning process activities, within the conceived limits. This software is the one that ensures the connection between students so that they can expose problems and solutions, it allows individual voting, learners actions and activity monitoring and automatic synthesis of final score. Finally the third phase in building this type of new service is preparing the teachers for working in the new conditions, where their role is fundamentally changing and becomes more pronounced in designing the learning process.

References 1. Akella, N.: The real deal on collaborative learning. Education 2(3), 23–29 (2012) 2. Amir, F., Iqbal, S., Yasin, M.: Effectiveness of cyber-learning. In: FIE 1999 Frontiers in Education. 29th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. Designing the Future of Science and Engineering Education. Conference Proceedings, vol. 2, pp. 13A2–7 (1999) 3. Dost´ al, J.: The definition of the term “inquiry-based instruction”. Int. J. Instr. 8(2), 69–82 (2015) 4. Isoc, D., Surubaru, T.: Cyber-training: relations, connections, synergistic and negative reactions. In: EDUCON 2019 Engineering Education through Student Engagement, Dubai, pp. 86–95 (2019) 5. Lepouras, G., Katifori, A., Vassilakis, C., Antoniou, A., Platis, N.: Towards a learning analytics platform for supporting the educational process. In: IISA 2014, The 5th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications, pp. 246–251 (2014)

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6. Mulnix, J.: Thinking critically about critical thinking. Educ. Philos. Theory 44(5), 464–479 (2012) 7. Paul, R., Elder, L.: Critical and creative thinking. Technical report, The Foundation for Critical Thinking, Dillon Beach, CA (2004) 8. Soloway, E., Jackson, S., Klein, J., Quintana, C., Reed, J., Spitulnik, J., Stratford, S., Studer, S., Eng, J., Scala, N.: Learning theory in practice: case studies of learnercentered design. CHI 96(734), 189–196 (1996) 9. Weimer, M.: Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. Wiley, Hoboken (2002)

Psychological and Pedagogical Problems of Beginning Lecturers and Postgraduate Students at Engineering University Elena B. Gulk1, Tatyana A. Baranova1, Victor N. Kruglirov1, Anastasia V. Tabolina1, and Pavel Kozlovskii2(&) 1

Institute of Humanities, Department Engineering Pedagogy, Psychology and Applied Linguistics, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Saint Petersburg, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Center (National Technology Initiative), Scientific Laboratory of Strategic Development of Engineering Markets, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Saint Petersburg, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. The paper discusses the psychological and pedagogical problems faced by beginning teachers and postgraduate students in their pedagogical work at an engineering and technical university. The study shows that the most significant problems concern the variety of the roles of the respondents and their lack of psychological and pedagogical training. Postgraduate students and beginning teachers must be engineers, researchers and educators at the same time. The paper demonstrates the interrelation between the role positions of a teacher at a technical university. However, to implement these roles, a specialist has to have a diverse set of competences. Every specialist is more apt to one or another of these roles. Moreover, the role of an educator is not of top priority for postgraduate students. In the authors’ opinion, this calls for correcting the way training is organized for future teachers of an engineering and technical university with due consideration of personal priorities in their professional work and the needs of universities for replenishing their pedagogical cadres with specialists educated in accordance with the necessities of the time. Keywords: Teacher-engineer
Postgraduate student
Beginning teacher Engineering pedagogy
Psychological and pedagogical problems




1 Context The problems of training pedagogical staff for today’s engineering education system are discussed in the works by Zhukov, Minin, Meletsinek, Prikhodko, Tatur, etc. [1–5]. The authors highlight the need for improving the psychological and pedagogical literacy of teachers, and for changing the priorities in their professional activities. It is caused by the changes the world is undergoing and the related need to alter the tertiary education © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 614–622, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_58

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system. It seems that the problem of improving the training of both engineering cadres and teachers of engineering disciplines is becoming more and more acute. Meletsinek points out that the level of teaching in technical universities must correspond to the development level of today’s engineering [1, p. 2]. Moreover, engineering education, the same as the entire tertiary education has to create conditions for personal development of a specialist-to-be, so that he could form his system of values, responsibility for his professional choice and readiness for lifelong learning. These qualities are becoming especially important in the situation when modern engineers operate technical equipment, which is capable to affect all spheres of our life [2]. The main role in training engineers of XXI century will be played by university teachers, which are post-graduate students or just beginning their teaching career today. So it seems really important and relevant to investigate the psychological and pedagogical problems postgraduate students and beginning university teachers are facing. The leading area of the reforms the RF Government has been implementing in education over the recent years is strengthening the role of science, including when the performance of every single teacher is assessed. Today the management of universities demands that the teachers should be involved in scientific research and be more active in their publication work. This work is considered to be top priority for postgraduate students. However, education in postgraduate programs is also seen as a stage during which students get prepared for pedagogical activity. Furthermore, postgraduate students are engineers who not only study but are also often employed within their specialization. In addition, having practical professional experience is another requirement for future teachers today [3, p. 13]. Thus, a postgraduate student, the same as any other teacher at an engineering university, has to play three roles: that of an engineer, a researcher and an educator. To be the same efficient in all three roles seems to be impossible, especially given a growing academic workload. So, naturally a teacher develops a hierarchy of roles, which is different for every person. The top priority role is chosen based on individual preferences and the effect of external stimuli, envisaged by the managing system of tertiary education. This causes some psychological and pedagogical problems when doing pedagogical work, which is not a top priority for the majority of beginning teachers. Hence, the level of motivation to master this role is low and teachers tend to follow the patterns obtained during their own education. There is growing resistance and a lack of understanding of innovative processes occurring in the educational process of an engineering university [6]. If these problems are diagnosed early at the stage of being a postgraduate student or a beginning teacher, it will be possible to build an individual path for professional development of a future teacher at an engineering and technical university.

2 Purpose The purpose of the research is to study psychological and pedagogical problems faced by beginning teachers, including postgraduate students in the process of mastering pedagogical activities. In this way the process can be updated and methodological guidelines can be developed to teach such disciplines as “Pedagogy of Higher School”, “Methodology of Teaching Specific Disciplines” to postgraduate students at an engineering and

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technical university and to teachers of engineering subjects in professional retraining and advanced programs. The following objectives were set and achieved in the course of the research: 1. Defining and developing methods and diagnostic models for investigating the psychological and pedagogical problems faced by the beginning teachers and postgraduate students of an engineering and technical university in the process of mastering pedagogical activities. 2. Conducting an empirical research study to define the role preferences of the postgraduate students and beginning teachers of an engineering and technical university. 3. Identifying the most significant psychological and pedagogical problems of the beginning teachers and postgraduate students of an engineering and technical university. 4. Developing methodological guidelines for organizing the teaching of disciplines like “Pedagogy of Higher School”, “Methodology of Teaching Specific Disciplines” to postgraduate students and teachers of engineering subjects in professional retraining and advanced programs at an engineering and technical university.

3 Approach The research study was conducted in two stages: a pilot study and investigation of the psychological and pedagogical problems the beginning teachers and postgraduate students experience as they master pedagogical activities. The purpose of the pilot research was to identify the preferred roles of the postgraduate students and beginning teachers in their professional work and to analyze the distribution of working hours between different types of activity of the specialists. The purpose of the second stage of the empirical study was to reveal the contents of the psychological and pedagogical problems and to identify the degree to which they are significant for the respondents. The psychological and pedagogical problems the beginning engineering teachers and postgraduate students face were researched in two stages. At the first stage the general list of problems, significant for the postgraduate students, was identified. At the second stage, the quality analysis of the importance of every problem was carried out on a six-point grading scale. The research methods are the following: theoretical – overview of psychological and pedagogical literature; empirical – questionnaires, performance analysis, expert assessment, testing; methods of data processing – mathematical statistics methods. The applied techniques: 1. The authors’ questionnaire “Balancing working hours and the main types of a teacher’s activity at an engineering and technical university.” 2. A structured interview of postgraduate students and beginning teachers of an engineering and technical university. 3. The authors’ questionnaire “The psychological and pedagogical problems of teachers at an engineering and technical university.”

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The authors’ questionnaire “Balancing working hours and the main types of a teacher’s activity at an engineering and technical university” contained the questions about the role preferences of the beginning teachers and postgraduate students and was aimed at researching the balance of working hours. The structured interview was conducted in a form of a press-conference, where the respondents took part. They were proposed to discuss the major psychological and pedagogical problems they face in their pedagogical work, how important this type of activity is for them, and their wish to be a teacher of an engineering and technical university. In the course of this work 25 major psychological and pedagogical problems were identified. The postgraduate students pinpointed the following problems, which troubled them most of all: 1. I want to do scientific (engineering) research and I don’t know if I should stay at university. 2. Traditional methods of teaching engineering, fundamental disciplines are not effective. What non-traditional methods can be used instead? 3. How can classes be made more interesting (how can tedious material be spiced up, and the contents be made more interesting and up-to-date)? 4. Where must the emphasis be: the factual material or how it is used in the practice of professional activity? Is it correct to start with profound theory and then move on to practice? What should the percentage of theory and practice be? 5. Why is it common to teach something which is not applicable at work, and why what is really necessary must be leaned on one’s own? 6. How can I organize my own knowledge for a more effective delivery of the material? How should I prepare the material for classes? 7. How can I make sure that the students pay attention in class? How can I draw and hold the students’ attention? 8. How can I stimulate the students to learn the material (how can I keep the students’ interest, learning motivation, including throughout the course)? 9. What can I do to those who do not want to study and believe that university education is necessary just “to check the box”? Should I try to teach them and make them change their mind? 10. Why are the first and second year students not serious in their attitude to studies? Is it the problem of yesterday’s school children? Why do students not want to study at all? 11. How can I define that students perceive the material actively, not passively? 12. How can I objectively assess if the material has been mastered? What assessment methods and tests can be used? 13. When is the right time to assess – during exams or throughout the semester? 14. Should the activity and diligence of the students be assessed and how can it be done? 15. What should be done if the students have different levels of knowledge and training? Different level of wish to learn or participate in learning events and projects?

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16. Should I control the attendance of classes, especially lectures? Are lectures necessary today? 17. How can I organize group work so that everyone is involved? 18. How can the following problem be tackled: I find it easy but the students cannot understand? How can I deliver the material in a comprehensible and clear way? 19. What is the right way to communicate with the students? Should there be a distance, especially if the age difference is not that big? 20. How can I respond to a student if I don’t know the answer to their question? 21. What is specific about teaching engineering subjects? What is the teaching practice in foreign universities? How can I develop my own methodology? 22. How can thinking and professional intuition be developed when transiting from manual to computer-aided calculation? 23. How can I avoid being nervous when teaching a class? 24. How can I overcome the problem of the lack of modern equipment in the university? 25. I feel the shortage and need for psychological and pedagogical knowledge. The authors’ questionnaire “The psychological and pedagogical problems of teachers at an engineering and technical university” made it possible to evaluate the degree of importance of these problems on a 6-point grading scale. 183 respondents took part in the research, with 152 of them being postgraduate students and 31 beginning teachers of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU).

4 Result The conducted pilot study shows that the beginning teachers and students do not see pedagogical work as their top priority and give preference to engineering activity and scientific research. Most of the respondents (58.55%) believe that their specialization is their leading activity, a third of the respondents (34.21%) focus on research activity, and pedagogical activity interests 7.89% of the respondents. The working hours of the postgraduate students and beginning teachers is distributed respectively. Despite the fact that the main objectives of postgraduate training are to master pedagogical activity, conduct scientific research and write a thesis, the postgraduate students dedicate most of their working hours to engineering (Fig. 1), and one third of their time to scientific work. A little more than 10% is spent on pedagogical work, which, obviously, is mostly done involuntarily, because of need: 55.14% is engineering, 32.10% is scientific research, and 12.63% is teaching. These results of the survey are accounted by what the respondents plan to do after they finish their postgraduate studies. According to the survey, these plans are quite diverse, with scientific research and pedagogical activity not being top priority. A third of the postgraduate students (26.8% + 7.3%) see postgraduate studies as a means to raise their status and they are going to leave university for production environment

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The working Ɵme balance of respondents

32.13 Engineering Teaching

55.12

Science

12.63

Fig. 1. The working time balance of respondents

upon graduation or even change their line of activity. Another third of the postgraduate students (34.1%) are still not sure about their future. And only every third person (14.6% + 17.1%) plans a career in scientific and pedagogical work (Fig. 2).

Future acvity plans of postgraduates

"Don't know", 34.1%

Teaching, 14.6% Science, 17.1%

Another acvity, 7.3%

Engeneering; 26,8%

Fig. 2. Future activity plans of postgraduates

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Thus, in the process of pedagogical training of engineering teachers at university, their focus of their attitude must be changed to the role of a teacher through demonstrating its significance, creative nature, and scientific character and through initiating interest to this type of activity. For these purposes it is best to use active learning technologies, based on solving real professional tasks and problems, the teachers face or can face. This, in turn, calls for researching the psychological and pedagogical problems the postgraduate students and beginning teachers encounter in their real practical work when giving classes. The second stage of the research study was dedicated to the analysis of the psychological and pedagogical problems the postgraduate students confront in the course of their pedagogical activity. In the course of the interviewing of the respondents, 25 psychological and pedagogical problems were identified. Most of the problems can be referred to the organizational and methodological aspects of pedagogical work (52%). The respondents find it had to solve didactical problems and consciously build the educational process. The second group of problems is related to the communicative aspect (36%). The respondents experience difficulties when interacting with students, organizing a dialogue inside a group, delivering the material, etc. 12% of the identified problems can be referred to the area of self-education and professional choice. The respondents feel that they lack psychological knowledge, have not decided on their future career, and want to master self-regulation mechanisms and self-education skills. The diagnostics of the degree of significance of the identified psychological and pedagogical problems show that, 80% of the problems lie within the area of average and high significance for the respondents (Fig. 3).

5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Fig. 3. The degree of significance of the psychological and pedagogical problems for the respondents (problems are numbered according to the given list)

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According to the research, taking part in the diagnostics and discussing the problems of pedagogical work acted as a motivation factor for engineering teachers. As the respondents pointed out it was important for them to see that their problems are similar to those of their colleagues. In the course of the discussion, they identified and realized these problems. They managed to find ways to overcome them. An active dialogue with the colleagues and the teacher (specialized in pedagogy) allowed them to see pedagogical activity at a different angle and understand its significance for engineering today. Differently from the previous years (when diagnostics were not used), after the diagnostics were conducted, active learning methods provoked the biggest interest of the postgraduate students and beginning teachers. They were ready to interact in a group, wished to take part in group discussions, were not afraid to be assertive in disputes, and became more conscious in their professional choice.

5 Conclusions/Recommendations The conducted research study allows us to make the following conclusions: Beginning engineering teachers and postgraduate students have serious problems in mastering pedagogical activity, preconditioned by a number of factors, including: 1. a low level of their psychological and pedagogical training, 2. the lack of actual motives for mastering pedagogical activity, except for: requirements for practical teaching experience and personal responsibility for the result of this activity, 3. the entrenched traditions of engineering departments, with pedagogy not being paid due attention to, 4. the lack of focus on improving pedagogy proficiency on the part of the leaders of the educational sector. The empirical research makes it possible to justify a new organization of the process of pedagogic cadre training for engineering education based on tackling the professional teaching problems of pedagogic work, to identify pedagogical conditions for improving the proficiency of an engineering teacher while learning psychological and pedagogical disciplines. The practical psychological and pedagogical training of postgraduate students must be expanded. Stricter requirements for acquiring pedagogical experience by postgraduate students can become an effective stimulus for developing the need to obtain psychological and pedagogical knowledge. An important role in this process is played by the diagnostics of the psychological and pedagogical problems that are urgent for beginning teachers. According to this research, just participating in the discussion and the analysis of the problems is a motivating factor for the beginning teachers and postgraduate students in mastering pedagogical activity. The identified problems must predetermine the list of professional teaching objectives to be reached when educating postgraduate students and beginning teachers. The content of education must be built in a way to solve these problems.

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Moreover, the following is necessary: using active and interactive learning forms and methods, which help to increase consciousness and involvements of learners in the educational process; organizing a dialogue communication when completing assignments; monitoring the results and reflection at every step of education; learning about up-to-date innovative technologies for teaching technical disciplines. This is a way to build a contemporary model of training pedagogical cadres for engineering education, which can be introduced when teaching such subjects as “Pedagogy of Higher School”, “Methodology of Teaching Specific Disciplines” to postgraduate students, in professional retraining and advanced programs for teachers of an engineering and technical university. Checking the efficiency of such a model can become the subject of further research.

References 1. Meletsinek, A.: Engineering Pedagogy. Practice of technical knowledge transfer, 3rd ed., 185 p. MADI (TU), (1998) 2. Tatur, Y.G.: The Educational Process at University. Methodology and Experience of Project Development: Course Book, 2nd ed., 264 p. Publisher of MSTU named after N.E. Bauman (2009) 3. Zhukov, V.A.: Engineering Pedagogy: Problems, Experience, Proposals: Study Guide, 279 p. Publishing House of the Polytechnic University (2008) 4. Minin, M.G., Lizunkov, V.G.: On forming the economic and managerial competences of bachelors of mechanical engineering. Tertiary Education in Russia, no. 6, pp. 149–156 (2015) 5. Prikhodko V.M., Sazonova, Z.S.: Engineering pedagogy: formation, development, prospects [electronic resource]. Higher Education in Russia, №. 1 (2007). http://cyberleninka.ru/article/ n/inzhenernaya-pedagogika-stanovlenie-razvitie-perspektivy 6. Seryakova, S.B., Krasinskaya, L.F.: The reform of tertiary education as viewed by the teachers: research findings. Tertiary Education in Russia, no. 11, pp. 22–29 (2013)

Adaptation of Professional Engineering Training to the Challenges of Modern Digital Production Ludmila V. Juravleva, Vadim A. Shakhnov, and Andrey I. Vlasov(&) Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russian Federation [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The work is concerned with the adaptation of professional engineering training to the requirements of modern digital production. The analysis of the typical infrastructure of engineering education, ensuring the implementation of project-based methods of teaching in the conditions of smart education, is carried out. The structural-functional model for adaptation of engineering training to the requirements of production digitalization trends is considered in detail. The proposed approach is based on the implementation of the concept of an educational and industrial smart cluster. The conditions for broad professional training and mobility of the specialists are created through the “digital production – university” smart infrastructure. The result of the social responsibility of such cooperation of educational institutions and enterprises is the creation of a new type of infrastructure – an educational and industrial smart cluster. Keywords: Engineering education
Digital economics methods
Team technologies
Smart education


Project teaching

1 Introduction Among the significant problems and trends in digitalization of the economy, special mention should go to the training of engineering personnel for fast-evolving digital production and parallel advanced vocational training of relevant teaching and support staff of educational institutions able to work in the conditions of the general distribution of digital technology [1, 2]. The engineers of the digital economy era must have working knowledge in the field of research and technological equipment, as well as experience in independent design and production activities. One of the most important components of the formation of a modern and effective system of engineering personnel training is the material and technical infrastructure of the educational process. In terms of the implementation of the “Industry 4.0” concept and further digitalization of the industry, synchronous design and production technologies [3], which accelerate the product life cycle, become preferential. These technologies open up the opportunities for implementation of integrated smart solutions in education and manufacturing. A significant step towards the creation of a modern material and technical base of higher education institutions of the Russian Federation has recently been made through © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 623–633, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_59

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the development of innovation infrastructure components: collective use centers (CUCs) [4], resource centers (RCs), as well as research and educational centers (RECs) according to the directions of technological platforms [5]. Thus, important prerequisites were created for the digitization of the training of specialists. It should be noted that at the moment, scientific researchers, economists, and managers are quite successfully trained by classical universities. However, the technocratic approach to the training of engineers based on the principle of “do as I said” no longer meets the requirements of the modern educational paradigm and modern digital production. It should be borne in mind that the training of engineering personnel has its own specifics; it is more laborious and costly. The training of those who can put into practice particular ideas and bring experimental development to mass production is impossible only in the classroom at the blackboard. It requires practice, internships, and experience in project activities. One of the reasons for the current situation is the reduction of the share of practical (project) teaching methods (laboratory works, workshops, internships, and practices) of applied specialists in the bachelor/master curriculum. This complicates the assimilation of the already rather complex technical disciplines. The high title “Engineer” is losing its former significance. The qualification characteristics of “bachelor”, “master” are difficult for the industrial enterprises to perceive when forming their personnel policy [6]. All this imposes strict requirements on the adaptation of engineering training to the conditions of digitalization of the economy. The aim of the work is to summarize and systematize the experience of interaction between educational institutions and industrial enterprises and create the models of the effective system of engineering training for the digital economy based on the cooperation of the production and educational infrastructure that forms the integrated smart educational environment. The complex of measures of the federal target programs of the Russian Federation is aimed at returning of “project teaching methods” to the universities so that the structure and composition of laboratory and practical works become decisive in the training of technical specialists [7]. A relevant task of the modern stage of development of the education system in the Russian Federation is the activation of the significant material and technical potential created within the framework of the Federal Target Program “Personnel of Innovative Russia” and others, ensuring the unity of educational, research and innovation activities.

2 Literature Review The adaptation of the educational process to the requirements of digitalization of the economy is increasingly leaning towards distributed command methods for engineering personnel training. In many countries, the concept of smart education has already become the de facto standard. The term “smart education” refers to the integration of educational and experimental-industrial innovation infrastructure, teaching staff, industry specialists and students in a single “virtual” environment (a cloud-based enterprise (a smart cluster) to form and transfer knowledge, skills and abilities) aimed at the implementation of joint educational activities based on common standards,

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agreements and technologies [8–10]. In this case, the emphasis is placed on strengthening the link between educational institutions and industrial enterprises. For these purposes, not only ordered R&D but also the creation of joint research and experimental infrastructure in the form of, for example, innovation and technology centers (ITCs), etc., are becoming increasingly common [11]. The conditions for engineering training using the ITC infrastructure are as close as possible to the actual production conditions. The ITC activities are carried out, as a rule, within the framework of a public-private partnership [12, 13]. The use of the industrial potential of industrial enterprises in the conditions of the digital transformation of the industry in the form of production and educational smart clusters makes it possible to establish creative workshops, virtual design bureaus, corporate universities, small joint ventures, etc. The introduction of the smart paradigm opens up the possibility of using broad academic mobility for advanced engineering education, the formation of personnel reserve in the workplace and in educational institutions [14, 15]. The objectives of the clusters include not only the formation of a stable connection between students and production (adaptation to the specialty) but also the retraining of teachers with the worldview of traditional production, taking into account the trends of its digitalization. This makes it possible to combine the experience of the past and the modern instruments of digital technology. The employees of the enterprises with the knowledge of modern tools of logistics management and information technology [16] involve students in the development of specific digital models of products and components, virtual (digital) simulation of production processes, etc. All this leads to the creation of a smart university-enterprise cluster environment [17–22]. In the Russian Federation, the technologies of “target recruitment” have recently become widespread, in which a student enters an educational institution in the direction of an enterprise, concluding an appropriate agreement with it. In the future, in the process of training, he/she undergoes practical training and internships at this enterprise, performs design work on the instructions of the enterprise and with the involvement of its employees. After graduation, a student is reliably employed by this enterprise. From the first days of the studies, the student joins the company’s team and adapts to it. One of the effective tools for educational processes organization in these conditions is the widespread introduction of active teaching methods, for example, business games. In the concept of an educational-production smart cluster, a business game becomes a tool for imitation of decision-making in various production situations. Using a single information space, a business game can be realized according to predetermined rules by a distributed group of people or personally in a dialogue mode in the conditions of effective competition or information uncertainty. The basis of this approach is the psycho-pedagogical principles of organizing a business game in a distributed production-educational smart environment [23–25]: – the principle of simulation modeling of specific conditions and the dynamics of production, which involves the modeling of the real conditions of the professional activity of a specialist in the whole variety of official, social and personal relations, is the basis of interactive learning methods;

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– the principle of game modeling of the content and forms of professional activity is a prerequisite for the educational game since it carries learning functions; – the principle of joint activity requires the implementation of the task by involving several participants in the cognitive activity, involves selection and characterization of the roles, determination of their powers, interests and means of activity, at the same time, identifying and modeling the most typical kinds of professional interaction between the “officials” or specialists; – the principle of dialogic communication determines the necessary condition for achievement of the educational goals, such activities as dialogue, discussion with the maximum participation of all players, able to generate the creative work, comprehensive collective discussion of the production situation by the players, allowing them to achieve a comprehensive presentation of professionally significant processes and activities; – the principle of bilateralism reflects the development of the real personal characteristics of a specialist in the “imaginary” game conditions, while the developer sets dual goals for students reflecting real and game contexts in educational production activities; – the principle of the content problematicity of the simulation model and the process of its deployment in gaming activities. Summarizing the results of previous studies, the following objectives of using business games in the educational process can be distinguished [22–25]: – formation of cognitive and professional motives and interests; – fostering of systemic thinking of a specialist, including a holistic understanding of not only nature and society but also oneself, one’s place in the world; – transfer of a holistic view of professional activity and its large fragments, taking into account emotional and personal perception; – training in mental and practical cooperation, the formation of skills and abilities of social interaction and communication, the skills of individual and joint decision making; – fostering of a responsible attitude towards business, respect for the social values and attitudes of the group and society as a whole; – training in modeling, including mathematical, engineering and social design; – fostering a responsible attitude towards business, respect for the social values and attitudes of the collective and society as a whole; – training in modeling, including mathematical, engineering and social design. One of the important objective at the stage of preparation of a business game is the formation of competitive teams. The need to recruit the staff to perform professional tasks in command forms of work organization is also encountered at industrial enterprises. For this, it is required to improve the personnel selection mechanisms, to simplify and unify the selection process itself, to implement it on a scientific basis, taking into account the experience of domestic and foreign practice. Personnel selection is usually carried out using a phased procedure. At each stage, some of the applicants are eliminated. The information may be collected through questionnaires and interviews, discussions, brainstorming, using the Delphi method, etc. [26].

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3 Methods Let us consider in more detail the methods of adaptation of the educational process to the conditions of the digital transformation of industry and industrial markets. Let us analyze the tools for the implementation of digitalization processes and evaluate the successful strategies for the digital transformation of the industrial and educational sectors. As noted above, one of the effective tools for organization of the educational processes in these conditions is the widespread introduction of active learning methods, for example, distributed business games. A business game is a method of imitation of various production situations in which professional students make real decisions within their official duties and status, under conditions of uncertainty, in the presence of contradictions and competition of points of view and arguments [23]. In this case, the forms of organization of training are used, similar to the forms of organization of production – distributed and command. Student groups are combined into virtual production structures that are virtually integrated into the structure of the enterprise, supervised by the tutors and managed on the principles of self-government. The teams are formed based on the principle of voluntariness or on the results of testing, taking into account specialization and psychological compatibility, which excludes conflict situations in resolving the arising contradictions. As a result of team activities, a specialist’s systemic thinking is formed, including a holistic view of not only nature and society but also oneself and one’s place in the world, professional activities, taking into account emotional and personal perception, the formation of skills and abilities of social interaction and communication, individual and joint decision making. The adaptation model depends on the level of state regulation in the economy. In the system with strict state regulation, social protection of graduates of higher education institutions by the state is provided by the following means (Fig. 1): guaranteed provision of jobs in accordance with the chosen profession; targeted distribution of university graduates to relevant enterprises; adaptation of university graduates to the conditions of production with the help of the Institute of Young Specialists, in accordance with the status of which the workplace is assigned to a graduate for a period of three years, the graduate is provided with coaching and housing; professional growth through training in refresher courses. Under these conditions, the main tasks of adapting young specialists to the conditions of production are carried out by manufacturing enterprises. At higher education institutions, students receive the elements of adaptation through course design, field trips, and diploma projects. The ways of development of vocational education in the conditions of selfregulating markets are largely determined by the reference points to the mechanisms of private-state partnership [12, 13] (Fig. 1b). In the absence of state regulation in the field of graduates’ employment, the following situation is created: the employment of graduates in accordance with the chosen profession is not guaranteed; graduates find employment on their own or with the help of recruitment agencies; employers prefer professionals with work experience; the elements of social adaptation and incitement are minimized.

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Fig. 1. Model of adaptation of graduates of higher education institutions – (a) in an economy with state regulation (b) in the conditions of self-regulated markets: (1) working in smartworkshops, (2) introductory training, (3) design-engineering training, (4) course design, (5) student scientific research project, (6) business games, (7) jobs are guaranteed, (8) targeted distribution, (9) institute of young specialists, (10) mentor in the company, (11) jobs are not guaranteed, (12) a graduate or employment agencies are engaged in getting a job, (13) an employer prefers experienced professionals, (14) benefits package is not included.

As noted above, it is advisable to use the potential of industrial enterprises for the training of engineers and internships for university teachers through joint infrastructure elements within the framework of a private-public partnership. The transformation of the system of engineering education into the development of methods of cognitive and engineering activities, communication and engineering culture requires a change in ideas about the educational process. The most important direction in the development of engineering education in this regard is the special organization of students’ work throughout their studies at the university in complex multidisciplinary practice-oriented groups (teams), the organization of project activities according to uniform interdisciplinary complex tasks (when one task, for example, to develop the layout of a specific device, is contained in the circuit design, engineering and technological subjects), the organic inclusion of students in the active creative activity using TIPS tools [18], ensuring their mass participation in a research and engineering work at manufacturing enterprises (Fig. 2). The conditions of engineering training of specialists at joint centers are as close as possible to the actual production conditions. Creation of production and educational clusters requires the development of methodological support, joint programs for the training of engineering specialists and teaching staff for the implementation of the dual system of innovative educational activities, combining the capabilities of educational and research laboratories of universities, small innovative companies, and large industrial enterprises. Small enterprises, created by the graduates, actively cooperate with the university, create jobs for students who participate in innovative projects while studying at the university.

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Fig. 2. The model of interaction between universities and enterprises in the command methods of teaching students (15) innovation-technology centers, (16) corporate universities, (17) certification (testing, interview, expert assessment), (18) business games, (19) joint management of on-the-job training

The proposed approach to the adaptation of professional engineering training to the challenges of modern digital production is aimed at providing training conditions for competent specialists through the use of high-tech educational technologies using the potential of manufacturing enterprises, interactive and active learning tools integrated into a single smart environment.

4 Results The solutions for the adaptation of professional engineering training to the challenges of modern digital production based on the use of business games in the educational process based on cooperation within the framework of production and educational smart clusters are proposed herein. At the same time, business games are used as active methods not only for training students but also for raising the level of skills of young specialists of industrial enterprises and teachers. Practical tasks, laboratory work, and seminar tasks are performed by the students, as a rule, in relation to a single object (according to a single complex task). However, successful modern enterprises are diversified, and future specialists have to solve multifactorial problems within the production process. In this regard, the production situations in business games are selected taking into account this circumstance.

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Let us evaluate the results of the implementation of the concept elements by the example of the implementation of the business game “Technological Preparation of Production” at Bauman Moscow State Technical University [18]. The process of solving the problems of technological preparation of production is iterative and does not depend on the object of production and type of production. However, at the stage of technological preparation of production, large temporary, financial, and material losses are possible, which can lead to the removal of the product from production and, ultimately, to the loss of sales markets. In the course of the business game, the students determined the main technical indicators of production located in virtual production areas in an accelerated mode of time (the type of multi-product production; production capacity; jobs and communications supplied to them; equipment placement planning, etc.). To select the effective placement of equipment at the production sites, one of the expert assessment methods was used. The employees of the university and of the enterprises were included in the expert group. As a result of an expert survey, the weight factors were determined for the assessment criteria for the indicators. When conducting a business game by the second-year students of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, the teams were formed based on the results of an assessment of the field of figurative understanding. For this purpose, a methodology for assessing figurative understanding has been developed using visualized thematic dictionaries of technical terms and definitions using the tools of cognitive graphics [18]. The proposed method of teaching in a visual form that is easily interpretable by the students has proven itself in solving educational problems in courses on systems engineering, robotics, and other multi-integrated disciplines. Such an approach proved to be especially effective in teaching foreign students. It significantly reduces the time to overcome the language barrier in students, contributes to the formation of professional vocabulary and improvement of the quality of learning material. 34 students participated in this game. To assess the field of figurative understanding, fourteen most commonly used technical terms were used: 1 – part, 2 – assembly unit, 3 – set, 4 – complex, 5 – billet, 6 – semi-finished product, 7 – allowance, 8 – tolerance, 9 – batch, 10 – device, 11 – tool, 12 – installation, 13 – workplace, 14 – equipment (Fig. 3) [18]. According to the results of the analysis of the data, the group of terms that form an area of figurative understanding at the stage of studying the discipline under consideration includes the following terms: allowance (7), tolerance (8) and batch (9), their images are highly informative. The ignorance of the rest of the terms (the difficulty of correct interpretation of the image) creates difficulties in mastering the discipline and mutual understanding of the teacher and students, therefore, requires contextual adaptive study. The thematic visualized dictionaries were used both when assessing the initial level of preparation (before conducting a business game), and when evaluating final competencies (after conducting a business game). However, when competing teams are formed only on the basis of psychological compatibility (on a voluntary basis), a situation is possible when teams understand the objects differently. The degree of the incompetence of one team may be three times the degree of competence of the other team. In this case, the result can be predictable with a high degree of probability, which excludes competition.

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Fig. 3. The results of the study of the field of figurative (visual) understanding of technical terms by the 2nd year students: along the X-axis, the terms are presented, along the Y-axis – the number of correct/incorrect answers is presented; the number of visualized terms corresponding to the subject area is highlighted in blue, the number of visualized terms not corresponding to the subject area is highlighted in red

According to the results of the study, it can be concluded that the active introduction of smart technologies into the educational process, combining trainees, teachers, employees of basic enterprises and their technological capabilities into a single infrastructure, provides a high level of adaptation of the graduates to the requirements of modern production in a digitalized economy.

5 Conclusions Taking into account the requirements of the digital economy, the educational process of training engineering and teaching staff in production and educational clusters should be carried out in the conditions of creative workshops (smart cluster). In the proposed model, a consortium (team) is formed, where continuity is realized in cognitive activity, the formation of ideas about the world and man’s place in the world, ideals, values, and goals of scientific and engineering work, the traditions of the art of research and engineering activities are fixed and transmitted in the course of the study. As a result of such training, conditions for a public-private partnership in the field of education, the use of broad academic mobility for advanced innovative education, ensuring the formation of a personnel reserve for industry and the universities themselves, are created. Acknowledgment. The research was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Science and Education of Russia within the framework of the project under the Agreement No. 14.579.21. 0158, ID RFMEFI57918X0158.

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A Development of Cognitive Tools to Enhance Problem – Solving in Basic Microcontroller Learning for Electrical Engineering Students Kitti Surpare(&) and Kanokwan Klinieam King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. This research is in the area of research development. The authors focused on designing and developing cognitive tools to solve learning problems in a basic microcontroller class. The sampling of the research was 15 undergraduate students of Teacher Training in Electrical Engineering Department, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. The analysis consisted of four development processes; 1. Theory and involved research papers, 2. Scope of the research analysis, 3. Cognitive tools design and development, and 4. Satisfaction evaluation from specialists and students. The evaluation results indicated that cognitive tools were useful for students to understand the microcontroller concepts and self-learning. The students were satisfied with the cognitive tools by giving 4.32/5.00 for average scores and 0.67 S.D. The cognitive tools obtained statistically significant at the 0.01 level for better learning achievement. Keywords: Cognitive tool


Microcontroller learning

1 Introduction Education in Thailand is a foundation of social-economic development that has been continuously growing. Technology and communication, such as computers and the Internet, are applied as a tool to improve the learning system. Therefore, the learning system should update its pattern, technique, and teaching methods to use technology and communication to enhance the learning of human ability and distribute their knowledge. E-learning (a learning system that applies electronic resources) now plays a primary role in the education system. E-learn, furthermore, helps instructors to provide new teaching methods and assists students to have better learning and gain more achievement. Microcontroller class is an undergraduate core course of electrical engineering program. In the class, students are taught about microcontroller connections and microcontroller programming to control electrical devices. Additionally, students are required to design and build microcontroller applications. However, lately, there were 20% of students in the microcontroller class who could not pass the standard requirements of the class. The authors discovered that the main reason for this problem was students could not understand the concept of writing the microcontroller programs.

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Fundamentally, microcontroller class is a complex learning class. The students need to have many skills; for example, students should be able to select devices to make correct connections on a microcontroller board, students should be able to edit programs including debugging errors of the microcontroller programs. Therefore, with many required skills, students who took the microcontroller class were obstructed to pass the standard requirements of the class. After the authors did research and analyzed involved papers and theories, we found that information technology was utilized as cognitive tools for self-learning in my research paper. Many articles used computers and the Internet to search for information, shared knowledge, and created several creativities that suppress and expand the learning processes of students. As Ref. [1, 2] stated, computers and the Internet became helpful tools for both instructors and students to help develop the learning process of students and also became intellectual partners of students. We knew that the traditional verbal lecture is a two-way communication teaching method. Students will not have many activities to develop and expand their knowledge adequately, as stated in Ref. [3]. Therefore, the authors developed new learning tools that applied computers and the Internet as cognitive tools to solve the learning problems of students of the microcontroller class. This paper aimed to develop cognitive tools for solving learning problems of students in basic microcontroller class. After instructors used the cognitive tools in microcontroller class, the students and the cognitive tools were evaluated. The cognitive tools were well suitable for students to gain better learning achievement that was statistically significant at 0.01 level, and students gave excellent satisfaction to the cognitive tools.

2 Scope of the Study 2.1

Variables

An Independent variable was learning management by using the cognitive tools to solve the learning problem in the microcontroller class. Dependent variables were learning achievement and satisfaction of students. 2.2

Population and Sample

The population of the study was undergraduate students who studied electrical engineering at King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, KMUTNB. The Sample of the study was 15 undergraduate students who studied electrical engineering in the second semester of 2019 at KMUTNB. 2.3

Duration

Duration of the study was eight weeks.

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3 Research Procedure There are two main steps. The first step of cognitive tool development was to solve the learning problems of students in the microcontroller class, by applying ADDIE Model that has five approaches (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. ADDIE model

1. Analysis The study used the cognitive tools to analyze the learning problems of the students who were our sample of this study by finding suitable contents of microcontroller class and analyzing student learning and all subjects that involved cognitive tool learning. 2. Design Designed cognitive tools and other tools to unlock the learning problems of students in the microcontroller class and design learning plans and objectives of the teaching to determine subjects of the subjects of microcontroller class. Additionally, the authors selected a statistic and created evaluation questions, examination to appraise learning progress of the students for measure and evaluation. 3. Development Developed the cognitive tools, learning plans, behavior observation forms, learning performance evaluation, and student satisfaction questions. 4. Implementation In this approach, the authors tested the performance of the cognitive tools by using a one-to-one test and a small group test for the sample. We observed and interviewed the sample, and then corrected some errors of the cognitive tools to get better performance. 5. Evaluation Evaluated the cognitive tool performance by five specialists who comprehends in the microcontroller class.

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Second step Studied learning progress of the sample by employing One Group Pretest-Posttest Design (Fig. 2).

T1

X

T2

Fig. 2. One group pretest-posttest design

Where T1 represents as Pretest T2 represents as Posttest X represents as the group of 15 students about learning microcontrollers by using cognitive tools.

1. Pre-test process 1:1. Notified the sample that they would use the cognitive tools to learn the topics of basic microcontroller and solve problems. 1:2. Measured and evaluated sample’s performance before the sample used cognitive tools by using knowledge organization tools which are online tests via learning management system module. 2. Test process 2:1 The sample used the cognitive tools to study basic microcontroller for eight weeks on knowledge organization tools and information presentation tools. Knowledge organization tools and information presentation tools are learning management system modules. The sample studied subjects of the class on VDO and materials such as file documents including exercises. Students were requested to use information seeking tools to search for additional information, summarized their understanding from the information, and demonstrated their solutions by using knowledge integration tools to draw a flowchart of their microcontroller program and then used knowledge generation tools which were Arduino boards and Arduino IDE program to write a program based on the flowchart. Additionally, the instructors already have solutions to check, correct and evaluate programs of the sample. 2:2 Measured and evaluated the learning performance of the sample and informed the results of the evaluation to the sample. 2:3. Surveyed satisfaction of the sample about learning microcontroller by using cognitive tools. 2:4. Used statistic in the study were percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and t-test dependent.

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4 Results of the Study Results of developing cognitive tools based on developing cognitive tool method of liyoshi and Hannafin, as stated in [4] for basic microcontroller learning of students consisted of five elements. 1. Information seeking tool was a tool such as Google search that helps students to search for data and status to analyze problems by keywords. 2. Information Presentation tool was a tool that allows analyzing subjects and solves writing microcontroller program problems to reduce cognitive load by learning sources that are available everywhere and every time such as data source and document that students can download via learning management system by Moodle. 3. Knowledge organization tool was a tool that assists students to organize information into the category and designs connection between main idea and information such as learning management system by Moodle (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Leaning management and presentation tool by Moodle

4. Knowledge integration tools helped students to integrate with learning information such as flowchart design tools, mind map tools (Fig. 4). 5. Knowledge generation tool helped creating ideas and solving methods by finding all possible solutions in different approaches. Students created projects based on integrated learning such as Arduino IDE and microcontroller programming sets (Fig. 5).

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Fig. 4. Online knowledge integration tools

There were five microcontroller specialists evaluated the cognitive tools and provided their evaluation in Table 1. Cognitive tool evaluation from five microcontroller specialists from Table 1 displayed the cognitive tool could obtain outstanding levels from the specialists and gained 4.36/5.00 for average scores and 0.65 S.D. The learning subject was excellent and received 4.6/5.00 for average and 0.55 S.D (Fig. 6).

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Fig. 5. Microcontroller programming set Table 1. Cognitive tool evaluation results Topics 1. Learning 2. Learning 3. Learning 4. Learning 5. Learning Total

subjects management tools and media environment evaluation

Ave. 4.60 4.20 4.40 4.40 4.20 4.36

S.D. 0.55 0.45 0.89 0.55 0.83 0.65

Level Excellent Very good Very good Very good Very good Very good

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Learning Evaluation Results of the Cognitive Tools

Table 2 demonstrated that t-test was 5.997, which was more than the t-test in the table at df = 14, which equaled to 2.62. Thus, we could conclude that the cognitive tools gained better learning achievement that was statistically significant at the 0.01 level.

Fig. 6. Learning microcontroller by using developed cognitive tools

Table 2. Learning comparison results Score Full score #students Ave. S.D. t-test Pre-learning 30 15 8.80 4.523 5.997 Post-learning 30 15 19.20 6.349

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Satisfaction Evaluation of Students to the Cognitive Tools

According to Table 3, the students were delighted with the cognitive tools by giving 4.32/5.00 for average scores and 0.67 S.D. Additionally, students felt that cognitive tools were exciting tools for learning basic microcontroller and helped students to review materials by themselves by giving excellent satisfaction to the cognitive tools.

Table 3. Satisfaction evaluation of students to the cognitive tools Evaluation lists 1. Are microcontroller subjects suitable? 2. Are learning activities from cognitive tools suitable? 3. Does evaluation relate with subjects and activities? 4. Can you apply the knowledge obtaining from the class? 5. Can the cognitive tools support your learning processes? 6. Does the source relate with class subjects? 7. Can the cognitive tool help students to address problems in the class? 8. Are cognitive tools interesting? 9. Can the cognitive tools support learning and self-learning? 10. Can students easily find information and get assistance? Total

Ave. 4.40 4.33 4.07 4.46 4.40 4.47 4.00

S.D. 0.51 0.49 1.03 0.52 0.51 0.74 0.85

Satisfaction Very satisfied Very satisfied Very satisfied Very satisfied Very satisfied Very satisfied Very satisfied

4.60 4.53 3.93 4.32

0.51 0.52 1.03 0.67

Excellent Excellent Very satisfied Very satisfied

5 Discussion and Conclusion This paper was the first investigation for the authors to apply cognitive tools for microcontroller class with the expectation that the cognitive tools could solve learning problems of the students. The authors described details of the study scope, research procedure, and results of the investigation. The achievement of the study was students’ performance and satisfaction of the specialists and students by survey results. The survey results confirmed that students found the cognitive tools useful in assisting their understanding and self-study of the class concepts and made the microcontroller class more interesting. As the microcontroller class applied the cognitive tools, the authors expected that the research procedure presented here would apply to teaching to address student learning in other programming classes.

References 1. Wannapiroon, P., Nilsook, P.: Blended learning model by using cognitive tools in developing graduate students analytical thinking skills. Acad. Serv. J. 3, 1–12 (2011) 2. Chaijaroen, S.: Article of technology education and teaching development. Khonkaen University (2008)

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3. Nuchkong, P.: The development of learning achievement and critical thinking by STEM and problem-based learning. Paper presented at the 1st National Kanchanaburi Rajabhat University Conference (2016) 4. Iiyoshi, T., Hannafin, M.J.: Cognitive tools for open-ended learning environments: theoretical and implementation perspectives. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Diego, CA (1998)

Poster: Intensive Learning Technologies as a Trend in Education Digitalization Anna V. Aksyanova1, Svetlana V. Barabanova1(&), Natalia V. Kraysman1, Vladimir V. Nasonkin2, and Nataliya V. Nikonova1 1

Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 Russian Peoples’ Friendship University, Moscow, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. An important task of engineering education is to ensure high quality training on the basis of fundamental approaches to training and taking into account the current and future needs of science and industry. The basic higher education in a modern university should combine both classical educational technologies and modern ones, related to the rapid digitalization process, i.e. information technologies including not only the technological infrastructure of auditoriums, but also various online courses, latest ebooks, original e-courses, adapted for a specific audience, taking into account the fields of study; videos, training programs, simulators, etc. At a number of Kazan National Research Technological University departments, with the participation of stakeholders, learning and teaching support kits were developed for solving the problem. The structure and content of these meets the requirements of the distance education system. They can be used in any engineering university, as well as in the system of supplementary vocational education. Keywords: Universal didactic kit
Intensive learning technologies
Education digitalization

1 Context In the context of transition to the information industrial society, functioning of technical and technological universities as educational, scientific, and innovative complexes is quite natural, in which “technological university – student - theoretical and practical knowledge” and “industrial enterprise - specialist - experimental activity” systems are integrated. Such integration is necessary to ensure a high level of scientific, professional, and universal cultural knowledge of graduates in order to enable them to innovate in production, technology, science, business, economic, and social spheres. It should be noted that formation of such competences is largely ensured by integration of disciplines, creation of interdisciplinary modules, formation of educational programs compiling blocks of different areas. It is this approach that enables implementation of © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 644–649, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_61

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such educational “concepts” as “technological innovations and sustainable development in biotechnology”, “digital analytics in economics”, “datascience statistics and technology”, “sociology and social informatics”. Obviously, with an optimal holistic approach, teaching methods should be brought to the level of an educational technology that ensures a guaranteed high quality of education.

2 Purpose or Goal The basic higher education in a modern university should combine both classical educational technologies and modern ones, related to the rapid digitalization process, i.e. information technologies including not only the technological infrastructure of auditoriums, but also various online courses, latest e-books, original e-courses, adapted for a specific audience, taking into account the fields of study; videos, training programs, simulators, etc. Training of a new type of specialist is not so much in provision of educational materials. It is more important to educate a person who is able to learn throughout lifetime, possessing a set of necessary above-mentioned qualities. Problems associated with introduction of new communication methods are actively discussed at all kinds of conferences and forums [1, p. 138]. Transition to digital university involves introduction of more flexible teaching processes and management of independent students’ work, in general, changing the corporate culture of modern universities [2, p. 180]. Undoubtedly, in the digitalization era, education will no longer be the same, and now we can see how new information technologies are being actively introduced into education, which makes these processes interdependent.

3 Approach According to the authors, achieving the above goals requires organizing a multidisciplinary training, which is based on the personality, integrative, and optimization approaches. It is based on the principles of flexibility, modularity, generalization, individualization, intensification, the optimal combination of fundamentality and professional orientation. When modeling an FMT system, the following basic principles should be considered: – integrity (irreducibility of the system properties to the sum of the properties of its parts and non-equality of the system properties from properties of its parts); – structured ness (functioning of the system is determined by the properties of its structure); – hierarchy (each element of the system is a relatively independent subsystem); – interconnection of the system and the environment; – multiplicity of descriptions. The innovative didactic system is based upon a universal didactic complex. The content and structure of this complex should reflect the universal nature of flexible multidisciplinary training and its suitability to the interests of individual areas and

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specialties, and include creation of a new type of a textbook in the didactic kit, a rating system of knowledge assessment, and a user account for self-preparation. The new generation textbook should provide for a new educational result, such as development of skills, ways of action and personal qualities, which allows students to independently discover new knowledge. Such textbooks develop general educational skills through domain-specific ones. The Cross Functional Didactic Complex (CFDC) contributes to solution of the problem of pedagogical stimulation of the students’ creative self-development, active self-managed cognitive activity, and is divided into three main parts: didactic materials, a multi-purpose didactic kit for the student, electronic resources, which may include electronic textbooks, a computer testing system, access to remote libraries to name just a few. This ensures mobility and flexibility of its layout, the optimal combination of teachers and students’ interests, taking into account interdisciplinary relations, requests of individual areas and, in particular, specialties. An electronic CFDC is designed to perform the following functions: – – – – – – – – –

be a full-fledged tool of the learning process; contain all modules and parts of paper media; combine, supplement and systematize various didactic means; disclose basic requirements to the content of the studied discipline; comply with the scientificity principles; implement information and practical content; present the material systematically and consistently; implement training continuity at all stages; comply with the principles of modularity, educational information “compression”, individualization, accessibility, combination of wideness and depth of presentation, rigor and clarity; – demonstrate the educational material in an illustrative way with the basic minimum text of and visualization, facilitating understanding and digestion of new concepts; – meet all work programs requirements; – meet the goals and objectives in mastering core competencies.

An electronic CFDC should not completely replace textbooks and teacher-led classroom studies, but assist both a teacher and a student, be additional to the conventional forms of education, a guide to the ocean of information and in choosing a learning path. For successful use of electronic CFDCs, digitization of educational materials is not enough. The use of these is only a prerequisite for further development of teaching, the evaluation criterion of which is its usefulness for the student. Innovation in content and structure of courses, organizational and structural changes in universities should bring real benefits to students [3, p. 315]. The main goal of electronic CFDCs should be taking full advantage of the computer and other electronic means – video materials, access to various resources, the ability of plotting, etc., based on the data obtained during the lesson. At the same time, numerous surveys show that despite the attractiveness of elearning, students note that a direct contact with the teacher and communication with other students are necessary; joint projects, team work, and mutual assistance should not be excluded from the educational process. No video lesson or video lecture, online

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consultation, electronic communication can replace communication with the teacher, his experience, and pedagogical skills [4, p. 51]. As can be seen from the above, an electronic CFDC currently should not compete with traditional print publications, but, in many ways surpassing them in access-toinformation speed and a variety of didactic means of presenting educational material, significantly improve the quality of the educational process and, as a result, the quality of students’ training.

4 Actual Outcomes At a number of Kazan National Research Technological University departments, with the participation of stakeholders, learning and teaching support kits were developed for solving the problem. The structure and content of these meets the requirements of the distance education system. A universal didactic kit in “Mathematics is” includes: (1) a lecture course book [5]; (2) study guide containing practical tasks for classroom sessions and calculation materials [6]; (3) a test package for each theme, which also includes formulas and definitions necessary for test execution; (4) personal Moodle account for self-preparation, self-checking, and also teacher’s control. The content of the main textbook, which is an information and reference system theoretical information necessary for solving problems, and detailed illustrations using examples. The intensive technology of mastering the discipline is thus based on the use of the kit and the use of the cabinet for organizing the self-study process. The rating system for assessing a discipline mastering level allows objective and comprehensive pedagogical and managerial education quality monitoring. The knowledge is tested via the Internet, using cutting-edge computer technology. Studies have shown that this form of knowledge testing is more understandable and accessible to students. The tasks were based on the following test criteria: (1) differentiability of the results; (2) independence of the results on the previous work; (3) selection of tasks according to the level of complexity. It is known that any assessment encompasses both an objective and a subjective aspects related to the teacher’s attitude to a specific student, with the teacher’s methodological experience, his assessment criterion, and sometimes with his mood. For the avoidance of the subjectivity associated with these factors, students are tested in the Moodle system, which contains a base of more than 1,000 tasks on all subjects of this course. This complex helps solve three main tasks in the training process: (1) Training task: mastering the knowledge system, acquiring a stock of specific information, mastering certain skills and abilities;

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(2) General formative task: assimilation of the concepts necessary for communication with other sciences, formation of a certain views system; ability to solve applied problems; (3) Educational task: development of such important personal qualities as accuracy, attention, the ability to memorize, to think abstractly and critically, to promptly adapt to the environment, the need for further self-education, for creative search. The proposed teaching packages can be used in any engineering university, as well as in the further vocational education system. Such a multi-purpose didactic complex is based on visual and virtual components, including a flexible modular program that allows taking into account the interests of individual areas of training; a didactic kit for students as an information model of the didactic system; electronic office in the Moodle system for remote interaction. These can be supplemented with virtual glasses, computer games, and simulators. The rating system for assessing a discipline mastering level allows objective and comprehensive pedagogical and managerial education quality monitoring. Studies conducted over the years, which will be described in detail in the full version of the article, show obvious advantages of this approach compared to classical methods. Training students using the proposed system helps educate competitive specialists. Research details - indicator of attendance, assessment of students for a course, comparative analysis of students’ progress on this content and with application of traditional forms, also the ideas of authors on further use and development of the offered methods will be published in a full paper in the magazine “Higher education in Russia”.

5 Summary The perfect combination of fundamental traditions of academic education and the latest advances in new educational technologies contributes to the ergonomics of learning and provides the most effective practical application of the knowledge gained. The offered kit helps the student to orient quicker in the large volume of new information, saves time when studying new subjects, allows to build the individual trajectory of training. Besides the student gains skills of independent acquiring of knowledge when studying material in an Internet office. The professional problems are presented in the kit by special departments of our university. The necessary professional competences are formed during the cross-disciplinary training [7, p. 1696]. One of the possible ways to improve this continuous education system is the use of distance learning technologies in education, as well as implementation of the didactic process based on the intensive technology with the transition to self-learning [10, p. 57]. The authors and developers of the kits are planning to create an adaptive virtual educational environment, develop and evaluate new training platforms, educational models and training programs in the context of transition to digitalization of domestic education.

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References 1. Ivanov, V.G., Kaybiyaynen, A.A., Miftakhutdinova, L.T.: Injenernoye obrazovanye v tsifrovom mire/Vischeye obrazovanye v Rossii (Engineering education in digital world/The higher education and Russia), №. 12, pp. 136–143 (2017) 2. Jesionkowska, J.: Designing online environment for collaborative learning in a scientific community of practice. In: The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL 2018), vol. 1, pp. 176–186 (2018) 3. Sadeghi, S.H., Bagnall, N., Jacobson, M.J.: e-pedagogical practice assessment in a higher education comparative context. In: The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL 2018), vol. 1, pp. 308–321 (2018) 4. Tchutchalin, A.I.: Injenernoye obrazovanye v epokhu industrialnoy revolutsyi I tsifrovoy ekonomiki (Engineering education during an era of industrial revolution and digital economy), №. 10, pp. 47–52 (2018) 5. Danilov, Yu.M., Jurbenko, L.N., Nikonova, G.A., Nikonova, N.V., Nurieva, S.N.: Mathematik. Utchebnoye posobye – Moskva. Infra-M, 3-e izdanie. Vischeye obrazovanye (Mathematics. Textbook – Moscow. Infra-M, 3rd ed. Higher education) (2019) 6. Jurbenko, L.N., Nikonova, G.A., Nikonova, N.V., Nurieva, S.N., Degtyareva, O.M.: Mathematika v primerakh i zadatchakh. Utchebnoye posobye. Moskva.– Infra-M, 3-e izdanie, Vischeye obrazovanye (Mathematics in exercises and problems. Textbook – Higher education, Moscow. Infra-M, 3rd ed.) (2019) 7. Barabanova, S.V., Kraysman, N.V., Nikonova, G.A., Nikonova, N.V., Shagieva, R.V.: Improvement of professional education quality by means of mathematics integration with general education and vocation-related subjects. In: ICL 2018 – 21th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning. 25–28 September 2018, Kos Island, Greece, pp. 1693– 1698 (2018) 8. Gazizova, N.N., Nikonova, G.A., Nikonova, N.V.: Utchebno-metodicheskyi komplekt po matematike dlya studentov technologitcheskogo universiteta. Vischeye obrazovaniye v Rossii (Educational and methodical set on mathematics for students of the technological university. Higher education in Russia), T. 27, №. 2. pp. 56–61 (2018)

Development of the Engineering University Students’ Ecological Competence Based on the Project Method Petr N. Osipov1, Alisher I. Irismetov1, Elena Klemyashova2, and Leisan Khafisova1(&) 1

2

Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Institute of the Study of Childhood, Family and Education of the Russian Academy of Education, Moscow, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. At the present stage of human society development, environmental literacy of population is becoming of major importance. This especially applies to graduates of engineering universities. Labor market demands such a specialist, who will not wait for instructions, but will enter into life with established creative, design-constructive and spiritual-personal experience, and it is such an environmental engineer who can be considered as professionally competent. The environmental competence of a future engineer is a holistic integrative ability of a specialist, which is ensuring his readiness to effectively solve problems related to natural resources management, the desire to mobilize professional competence, personal qualities based on the actualization of individual experience for the successful activities to protect the global environment in the process of professional functions performance. Unfortunately, despite the measures taken, the development level of future engineers’ environmental competence leaves much to be desired. This defines the task of the scientific search, which is to answer the question: how to develop the environmental competence of future engineers in a technological university? Keywords: Environmental issues
Environmental competence Environmental project
Engineering university




1 Introduction The current ecological situation is characterized by a high degree of environmental disasters risks, increased anthropogenic impact on nature [5, 6, 11], which requires constant attention to environmental problems and their effective solution [1–3, 6, 7]. In the conditions of environmental degradation, role of specialists in the field of environmental safety increases substantially. Nowadays environmental engineers work in various federal structures and are in demand at each enterprise to solve emerging environmental problems and prevent them professionally.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 650–662, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_62

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Features of university education in the information society necessitate a review of future environmental engineers’ professional training in accordance with requirements of the labor market, specific needs of employers, educational standards, and needs of an individual and society. The professional competence, which includes, in addition to professional knowledge and skills, such personal qualities as independence, ability to make responsible decisions, comes to the fore in the environmental specialist training. This is especially true for training of future environmentalists in Russia. Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has led to new requirements for training of future environmental engineers [3, 5, 12]. The World Trade Organization plans to adopt and implement international ISO standards in the countries that are included in the WTO, ensuring a unified global system of requirements for managing the quality of goods and services. One of the most important international standards is ISO 14000. The subject of this standard is the environmental management system (EMS), the use of which makes it possible to effectively combine the company’s economic growth with the preservation of the environment. Knowledge of ISO standards and their implementation in organizations are mandatory requirements for future environmentalists. The new requirements for the professional training of environmental engineers in connection with Russia’s accession to the WTO are the following: the ability of scientific-based environmental examination of products with a dubious environmental profile and the requirements for their packaging and labeling; the ability to apply multilateral environmental agreements (MEA) in resolving controversial issues of the WTO; the ability to apply knowledge of standards that establish the parameters of goods sold on a particular market, regulated acts, defining methods of processing and production, as well as standards in the field of pollution; the ability to determine strategies based on international experience for solving environmental problems, etc. A number of researches deal with the problems of ecological education and upbringing, formation of the ecological culture of students. However, the analysis carried out suggests that these works could not take into account new requirements for the professional activities of environmental engineers in the changed conditions caused by Russia’s entry into the WTO. Thus, there is a contradiction between the need of environmental competence formation for future engineers, allowing them to solve emerging problems in accordance with the new requirements set by the international community, and the lack of an integrated system to ensure it in the educational process of the university, adequate to modern conditions. This defines a scientific task of the research which is to answer the question: how to develop future engineers’ environmental competence in a technological university? The development and experimental verification of engineering university students’ environmental competence on the basis of a project method can help to answer the raised question. It is possible to achieve this goal if we develop theory, implement a structural-functional process model that meets the terms of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and implement a set of certain pedagogical conditions of future engineers’ professional training, which are to be identified and justified in the study.

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The following tasks are solved in the research process: 1. To identify and justify the new requirements for the engineers’ professional training in connection with Russia’s WTO accession, and on this basis to clarify the structure, determine the substantive characteristics of the “engineer’s environmental competence” concept. 2. To determine the content, forms, methods and means of forming the future engineers’ environmental competence that shall meet the new requirements. 3. To develop and test an educational-methodical complex on the additional module “International Trade and Ecology” of the discipline “Environmental Management and Environmental Audit”, electronic educational resource “Virtual Laboratory of an Ecologist”. 4. To check the effectiveness of the developed model and the pedagogical conditions for development of future engineers’ environmental competence in a technological university in the experimental work on the basis of the developed criteria and indicators.

2 Materials and Methods The environmental competence of an engineer is considered as an integrative ability that ensures the specialist’s readiness to effectively solve problems related to environmental management, striving to mobilize professional competence, personal qualities based on the actualization of individual experience for the successful implementation of environmental protection measures in the process of professional functions implementation. Theoretical analysis of the research problem allowed to determine the structure of the environmental engineer’s professional competence, which consists of the following components: motivational, cognitive and operational. In the course of investigations, a structural-functional model of the future engineers’ environmental competence formation was developed and the pedagogical conditions for its implementation were identified. The first condition is the design and implementation of integration of natural science, humanitarian, legal, environmental, economic knowledge in the additional module “International Trade and Ecology” of the academic subject “Environmental Management and Environmental Audit” on the basis of an interdisciplinary approach. The content of the module includes questions related to the ecological and psychological aspects of the interaction between man and nature; legal aspects of the relationship between trade and the environment; physical and economic environmental impacts; international system of environmental protection; multilateral environmental agreements; agreements on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary standards. The second condition is the use of student-centered, developing technologies, interactive teaching methods, project methods, business, role-playing, simulation games, the inclusion of production situations in the educational process; the use of information educational resources that contribute to the formation of professional competencies, the students’ assimilation of the nature-man relationship system main categories.

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The third condition is the development and testing of the electronic educational resource “Virtual Laboratory of the Ecologist”, which allows the use of information and communication technologies to improve the effectiveness of students’ continuous self-education activities, to create individual educational trajectories of future environmental engineers. The main feature of the Virtual Laboratory of the Ecologist is the availability of a large amount of various environmental information - the curriculum of the additional module “International Trade and Ecology”, designed for 18 classroom hours; tests; project topics; tasks for independent work; regional, urban, international news; articles; photos. The site has a forum as a feedback form and a guest book. The fourth pedagogical condition is the monitoring of process and results of the future engineers’ environmental competence formation. The natural basis for the development of students’ environmental competence are project activities, which are one of the most popular forms of work with students. The project method is the organization of training, in which students acquire knowledge in the process of planning and performing practical projects. The basis of the project technology is development of the cognitive and research environmental activities for future engineers, their ability to construct the knowledge in such a way as to navigate the ecological space. The outstripping development of the person himself as a part of the environment comes to the fore. The traditional teacher-student relationship is changed to a student-teacher relationship. This is precisely the exceptional case when the sum changes from the rearrangement of the components (the educational result). Of particular importance is the involvement of a student in the process of environmental search, in which result is not that important as the process of achieving the result. While working on a project, the teacher performs a function of a consultant, assisting the future environmental engineer in finding information and coordinating the working process on a project. The introduction of the environmental project method into the educational process creates an innovative developing environment that includes motivation for learning activities, the problem-creative orientation, the acquisition of environmental knowledge, independent work skills, a new experience of environmental search and orientation to a good ecological environment. There are many different options for implementation of the project training. The article by Ziyatdinova and Sanger [10] describes one of the project training themes - a gradual transition from solving “closed-type” problems, having one correct answer (close-ended problems), to solving “open-type” problems from the real world, allowing different options for solutions (open-ended problems). One of the main tasks in the arranging of students’ researches on the basis of project activities is their involvement in environment protection work. As an example, we present one of the projects “Save the Black Sea”. The relevance of this topic can begin with an introduction to the problem: for thousands of years, people have used the seas for fishing, transport and trade. Today, this area has expanded due to the extraction of oil, gas and ores of some metals in coastal waters. Unfortunately, now the oceans have turned into a garbage dump of various wastes, including sewage, domestic and nuclear waste, expired chemical weapons, etc. The lesson consisted of two cycles. The first cycle was to get to know the problems of the Black Sea with the help of the video “Seas and Oceans”. For this purpose, three

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volunteers who will take the role of researchers present additional information on this issue (they are asked to prepare extra data on the Black Sea and its problems in advance) to the fellow students. After a brief acquaintance with the problems of the Black Sea, it can be concluded that solution is beyond the power of any separate counter located on its shores or in its basin. Therefore, all these countries need to combine their efforts to solve the problems. The second cycle consisted of the preparatory part and the conduct of the game itself. In the preparatory part, future environmental engineers are invited to simulate the work of an international conference “Save the Black Sea”. It is necessary to discuss whether to invite: • representatives of the countries located on the shores of the Black Sea; • representatives of the countries located in the Black Sea basin (Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Germany, Moldova, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Czech Republic), whose enterprises and population also contribute to the pollution of the rivers flowing into the Black Sea; • representatives of European and international organizations working in the field of environmental protection, protection of wetlands, migratory birds, etc.; • representatives of companies operating in the field of maritime transport, tourism, fertilizer production, oil production and refining, etc. The names of all countries and organizations whose representatives should be invited to this conference are written on the blackboard. Students choose roles of different countries and organizations representatives whose interests they will defend. The list of participants also includes three researchers who presented the review of the Black Sea problems, as well as several representatives of the media, human rights, environmental and professional (fishermen, owners of small hotels and restaurants, etc.) organizations. For the best effect, parts are given to all students. Tables and chairs are arranged so that all conference participants could sit in a circle, facing each other. This will emphasize their equal rights and the desire to find mutually acceptable solutions. A table with three columns is drawn on the blackboard, one or two students perform the role of the conference secretariat, recording the proposals from the participants. The conference starts with a consistent discussion of the following issues: • What are the characteristics of the Black Sea? (Here the data provided by the three researchers is used.) • What is the Black Sea used for? (Shipping, fishing, salt, sand, oil, titanium, tourism and recreation, pollutant discharge, etc.) • What are the sources of the Black Sea pollution? (The ingress of oil and oil products, salts of heavy metals, pesticides and other chemical and organic pollutants coming from energy and manufacturing industry, agriculture, transport, and the population living here.) It is also necessary to discuss the role of rivers flowing into the sea. • What other activities threaten the Black Sea biodiversity? (Overfishing and aquatic invertebrates; using natural destructive tools and methods of fishing; introduction of

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alien species that destroy some native species of plants and animals; draining floodplains of rivers and coastal wetlands, etc.) On the basis of the identified problems recorded in the left column, it is necessary to develop measures to counter these problems or find ways to solve them in accordance with multilateral agreements and WTO rules. These sentences are written in the middle column. Then each of these specific proposals is discussed. All points of view of conference participants’ are taken into account. Further, the conclusion is formulated that the development of concrete and mutually acceptable solutions is an extremely difficult task and its solution requires, above all, time, patience and mutual respect from all participants of the negotiations. At the end of the conference, the participants are invited to answer the question: “What could I personally do as an ordinary citizen to protect the Black Sea when I am at the seaside?” The most typical answers are recorded in the right-hand column. Students discuss how common they are and how they differ from the sentences recorded in the middle column. Let us give an example of another educational project “Sustainable Development: Myth or Reality?”. The class shall begin with a brief annotation to the project. In 1992, Rio de Janeiro, at the UN Conference on Environment and Development proclaimed a need for a transition of the world community to sustainable development. Sustainable development is a development that satisfies the needs of the present, but does not jeopardize the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. World scientists were divided into “optimists” and “pessimists”, some believe that it is still possible to stop the destruction of the environment, others that it is already impossible to stop the process of destruction. The fundamental question for the project discussion is “What awaits humanity”? There were problematic questions like “Technosphere or noosphere?”, “Is “the sphere of mind” or the noosphere that sensible?”, “Does the development of technological civilization lead to the noosphere?”, “Does the anthropogenic impact on the biosphere jeopardize the sustainable development of civilization?”. Study questions: 1. Technosphere or noosphere? 2. Does development of technological civilization lead to the noosphere? 3. Does the anthropogenic impact on the biosphere jeopardize the sustainable development of civilization? 4. The concept of external effects (externalities), their consideration in economic development 5. Natural resource intensity as a criterion for sustainable development 6. Economic consequences of environmental crises Introductory lesson (1 h) begins with a discussion with students on issues related to the project. Students form a cluster on the topic “Sustainable Development: Problems of the Present” and fill in the table “I Know, I Want to Know, I’ve Learned”. The teacher offers a booklet, which explains use of the project methodology when studying this topic. The booklet contains questions to which students will have to find answers and a description of their activity plan.

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This is followed by the formation of groups and setting goals for creative work in the groups (1 h). Students are divided into two groups - engineers and environmental engineers. Engineers - for the technogenic type of economic development, environmental engineers - for a sustainable development. The students frame a plan of work, choose methods and forms of presenting results together. Performance evaluation criteria are developed in a collective discussion. At this stage it is also advisable to discuss how to find sources of reliable information on the topic and use them while respecting copyrights. The teacher recommends a list of resources on the project subject. Students work on individual tasks. Criteria for evaluating student work are being clarified and adjusted. Students consult groups, assist in finding resources, look for answers to the fundamental question, draw up the research results and prepare for the role playing game, which is to defend their works in the form of symposium debates. Other courses students are invited as well. Each students group discuss goals, progress and expected result of the work. Completing assignments on the project topic (1 academic hour and 2–3 h of independent students’ work in groups are assumed). Thus, a prerequisite in the professional training of future environmental engineers is the development of creative ability to apply knowledge and skills to solve practical, vital tasks. In this sense, the project activity is now regarded as a means for the professional competence formation of future environmental engineers. The pedagogical result of the project activity is, first of all, the activity itself. The students did something, they had a lot of ideas, they faced unusual problems, overcame them, learned a lot of new things, used their knowledge. This is very important to tell about in the presentation. And the product is one of the embodiments of the idea.

3 Results and Discussion The experimental work was being carried out at the Kazan National Research Technological University for several years. Its purpose was to test the designed structuralfunctional development model of future environmental engineers’ environmental competence and the pedagogical conditions for its implementation in educational process of an engineering university. At the first stage of the experiment, 25 students enrolled in the specialty 280201 Environmental protection and rational use of natural resources (experimental group EG) and 20 students enrolled in the specialty 280202 Engineering Environmental Protection (control group - CG) participated. The results of the ascertaining study showed that the formation levels of students’ professional competence in the EG and CG turned out to be approximately the same. High formation level of the professional competence components in both groups was shown, respectively, by 10%, 15%, 10% of students in the CG, and - 12%, 8%, 16% in the EG. The majority of students showed a middle level of the components formation: in the CG - 60% for all components, in the EG - 60%, 68%, 56%. In the course of the formative experiment, the model and the pedagogical conditions for formation of future environmental engineers’ professional competence were tested for their effectiveness. During the first academic year, students of the EG visited

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the Virtual Laboratory of the Ecologist; had classes in the extra module “International Trade and Ecology”, familiarized with the problems of society and environment relationship; performed educational projects. Students of the CG were trained by a traditional program. At the end of the school year, a reevaluation of the all components severity which characterizes formation of students’ professional competence from the CG and EG was carried out (Figs. 1 and 2).

Fig. 1. Distribution of formation level of students’ environmental competence components at the ascertaining stage, %

Fig. 2. Distribution of formation level of students’ environmental competence components at the final stage, %

The high formation level of professional competence components in the CG was showed by 17%, 28%, 11% of students, respectively, while in the EG - 41%, 46%, 36%. The low level was significantly reduced in the EG to 5%, 0%, 5%, respectively, while the number of students remaining at a low level in the CG was 17%, 11%, 17%, respectively, to the specified components. The formative experiment was continued during next two years. The experimental work involved fourth-year students enrolled in the specialty 280201 Environmental

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Protection and Rational Use of Natural Resources (47 people). In total, 72 students in EG and 58 students in CG took part in the experimental work for three years. Over a course of three years when the project training was used in the educational process as a means of forming the environmental engineers’ professional competence, students of experimental groups showed a steady positive trend in all components (see Tables 1, 2, and 3).

Table 1. Distribution of formation level of future environmental engineers’ professional competence, motivational component, % Motivational Group Control Experimental First academic year Level Before After Before After Low 26.3 15.8 25 4.2 Mid 63.2 73.7 62.5 62.5 High 10.5 10.5 12.5 33.3 Second academic year Low 31.6 15.8 30.4 4.3 Mid 63.2 68.4 65.2 60.9 High 5.2 15.8 4.4 34.8

Table 2. Distribution of formation level of future environmental engineers’ professional competence, cognitive component, % Cognitive Group Control Experimental First academic year Level Before After Before After Low 26.4 15.8 29.2 4.2 Mid 52.6 57.9 50 62.5 High 21 26.3 20.8 33.3 Second academic year Low 26.3 10.5 26.1 4.4 Mid 52.6 63.2 52.2 60.9 High 21.1 26.3 21.7 34.7

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Table 3. Distribution of formation level of future environmental engineers’ professional competence, operational component, % Operational Group Control Experimental First academic year Level Before After Before After Low 26.3 10.5 25 4.2 Mid 57.9 68.4 58.3 50 High 15.8 21.1 16.7 45.8 Second academic year Low 26.3 10.5 26.1 4.3 Mid 57.9 73.7 56.5 43.5 High 15.8 15.8 17.4 52.2

The proof of the differences reliability in the results was carried out according to the statistical criterion v2. Since after the experimental work, the value of v2 exceeds the critical value of 5.9, it can be concluded that the formation levels of the professional competence components in the experimental groups were significantly higher than in the control groups. One of the objective effectiveness indicators of the developed model and pedagogical conditions for the formation of future environmental engineers’ professional competence is the participation of students in scientific conferences on environmental issues and actions. At the ascertaining stage of the experiment, only 7% of students participated in scientific research and conferences on environmental issues, and 6% in environmental activities. At the formative stage of the experiment, their number increased to 24% and 12%, respectively. At the final stage of the experiment, 26% of students participated in research, 12% participated in conferences and more than half of the students participated in environmental activities more than twice during the year. Another objective development indicator of the future environmental engineers’ professional competence is the flunk out of students. In the EG it was 10%, while in the CG it was 18%, which, according to Fisher’s criterion, is a significant difference and indicates a higher degree of motivational component of professional competence among experimental groups students.

4 Conclusions 1. The World Trade Organization places high demands on professionals who provide environmental control of goods and products that protect the environment. Such specialists should be prepared in engineering universities. The formation problem of the professional competence, as a holistic integrative ability of a specialist, ensures readiness to effectively solve problems related to environmental management, the desire to mobilize professional competencies, personal qualities based on the

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actualization of individual experience for the successful implementation of environment protection activities as a part of professional functions. The study has found that the role and importance of engineering university students’ environmental competence in modern conditions increase. The competence development is the most conducive to the project method and individual experience of independent decision-making on a wide range of environmental issues. This creates opportunities not only for group, but also for individual implementation of nature protection projects; actualization of emotional-volitional and intellectual sphere for making responsible decisions in complex, constantly changing environmental conditions; analysis of the positive and negative aspects of the impact on nature; stimulation of interest in nature protection issues. The formation of future environmental engineers’ professional competence should be carried out in the context of social and professional training implementation, based on the ideas of advanced and continuing education, as well as on the principles of integration and advanced professional education. Effective organization of future environmental engineers’ vocational training is facilitated by a structural-functional model (includes methodological, substantive, procedural and effective units) which is developed and tested during the research process. The implementation of the developed structural-functional model is provided by a combination of the following pedagogical conditions: • design and implementation of integration of natural science, humanitarian, legal, environmental, economic knowledge in the additional module “International Trade and Ecology” of the academic subject “Environmental Management and Environmental Audit” on the basis of an interdisciplinary approach; • use of student-centered, developing technologies, interactive teaching methods, project methods, role-playing, simulation games, the inclusion of production situations in the educational process; the use of information educational resources that contribute to the formation of professional competencies, the students’ assimilation of the nature-man relationship system main categories; • development and testing of the electronic educational resource “Virtual Laboratory of the Ecologist”, which allows to use of information and communication technologies to improve the effectiveness of students’ continuous self-education activities, to create individual educational trajectories of future environmental engineers; • monitoring of the process and the results of the future engineers’ environmental competence formation.

6. The formation effectiveness of the future environmental engineers’ professional competence is determined on the basis of the following criteria and indicators: motivational, cognitive and operational. 7. The formation levels of future environmental engineers’ professional competence are substantiated: • high - characterized by students’ awareness of the importance of the profession; the motivation of professional activity, a pronounced interest in knowledge,

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broad erudition in the field of interaction between international trade and environment; concern about problems of conservation and rational use of natural resources; strong and deep environmental knowledge, its free use in practice in new situations; conscious attitude to the environment; the ability to organize project activities at a high level; • medium - characterized by a less prominent interest in environmental knowledge, a lack of orientation in the problems of interaction between international trade activities and environmental protection, less active participation of students in independent work on environmental content, inconsistency in environmental protection activities, not critical self-esteem; • low - characterized by a weakly expressed interest in the knowledge, search for ways to solve the assigned learning tasks, fragmentary, unsystematic knowledge of norms, rules and principles governing international intercourse in the field of environmental protection; assimilation of new materials happens only after explanations of the teacher; difficulty in the allocation of essential features of environmental concepts and phenomena, lack of independence and efforts in the work of environmental protection. The study does not fully cover the issue under study. Further development aspects of an integrated formation system of the future engineers’ environmental competence, which is adequate to present constantly changing conditions, is required.

References 1. Anisimov, O.S., Glazachev, S.N.: Ecological culture: ascent to the spirit. The search for the spiritual and moral foundations of the correction of education and culture, p. 186 (2005). (in Russian) 2. Irismetov, A.I., Ivanov, V.G., Osipov, P.N., Shaikhiev, I.G.: Formation of professional competence of future environmental engineers in a technological university, p. 151 (2017). (in Russian) 3. Ivanov, V.G., Irismetov, A.I.: International Trade and Ecology: Textbook, p. 112 (2013). (in Russian) 4. Johnsons, J.K.: Design Methods, p. 326 (1996). (in Russian) 5. Marrakesh Declaration: Morocco, 12–15 April 1994 (1994). https://www.jus.uio.no/lm/wto. gatt.marrakesh.declaration.1994/landscape.a4.pdf 6. Mukhutdinova, T.Z.: Formation and development of a regional system of continuous environmental education of an engineer, p. 415 (2005). (in Russian) 7. Muraveva, E.V.: Ecological preparation of students of a technical college, p. 244 (2006) 8. Osipov, P.N.: Engineering pedagogy: from cooperation to synergy. Vyssheye obrazovaniye v Rossii (Higher education in Russia), no. 11, pp. 62–68 (2017). (in Russian, abstract in Eng.) 9. Osipov, P.N., Ziyatdinova, J.N.: Collaborative learning: pluses and problems. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Florence, Italy, 20–24 September 2015, pp. 361–364 (2015) 10. Sanger, P.A., Ziyatdinova, J.N., Ivanov, V.G.: An experiment in project based learning: a comparison of attitudes between Russia and America. In: Conference Proceedings of ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition (2012)

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11. Sarkisov, O.R., Lyubarsky, E.L.: Environmental safety and legal problems in the field of environmental pollution, p. 288 (2011). (in Russian) 12. WTO (World Trade Organization): Agreement on the use of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS Agreement) (1995). www.wto.org

International Network Conference as an Efficient Way to Integrate Universities and Businesses in the Context of Digital Economy Sergey V. Yushko, Mansur F. Galikhanov, Svetlana V. Barabanova(&), Alla A. Kaybiyaynen, and Maria S. Suntsova Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. Development of engineering education is closely related to the global development processes of post-industrial society in the context of Industry 4.0, digitalization of economy, and the vigorous growth of technology and media. The ideas become dominating that education must serve the goals of a sustainable and dynamic society experiencing serious crises of technogenic and social/political nature. Accordingly, the goal of higher engineering/ technology education be-comes turning out engineers that are ready to overcome the above challenges. This goal cannot be achieved without exchanging best practices and ideas among researchers and teachers representing the universities of various countries, involving the interested representatives of leading corporations. International engineering education forums and conferences may offer great opportunities for that. Issues and problems of engineering education are currently dis-cussed at many global forums and conferences, including the ICL/IGIP. Since 2016, the International Science and Practice SYNERGY Network Conference has become a large discussion site in Russia. The conference applies best global practices, as well as identifies and accomplishes important goals, such as developing public-private partnership, modernizing curricula, upgrading the skills of faculty members, managing staff, and other conference participants, spreading new educational techniques and technology, using digital formats and education digitalization being especially important given the scale of Russia, and expanding partnership links to companies being the customers of universities and participating in the conference. Outcomes of the conferences already held demonstrate a significant effect pro-vided on the university teachers who adopt best practices and teaching methods, learn from each other, cross-pollinate, and get feedback from employers regarding the quality of professional training and necessary improvements. Keywords: Engineering education University collaboration


Academic-industry partnership


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1 Introduction Development of engineering education is closely related to the global development processes of post-industrial society in the context of Industry 4.0, digitalization of economy, and the vigorous growth of communication technology and media. These factors imply resource mobility and relaxing international barriers in professional communications. Moreover, globalization determines integrating and unifying national economies, policies, and cultures. New understanding of time and space boundaries is being formed. At the same time, in the context of increasing adverse technogenic effects and phenomena, training engineers is of great importance to ensure sustainable social development. Today, the challenges of contemporary engineering education are getting a fundamental social, political, and humanistic dimension. The ideas become dominating that education must serve the goals of a sustainable and dynamic society experiencing serious crises of technogenic and social/political nature. Accordingly, the goal of higher engineering/technology education today becomes turning out engineers that are ready to address the above challenges and conform to them. Those who will digitally transform the economy [1]. This goal cannot be achieved without exchanging best practices and ideas among researchers and teachers representing the universities of various countries, or without involving the interested representatives of industrial enterprises and leading global corporations in such discussions. International engineering education forums and conferences may offer great opportunities for this [2].

2 Groundwork of Running the Synergy Conference A pronounced trend is being observed in all over the world to combine the efforts of governments and scientific, educational and business communities, aimed at outlining the further development of engineering education. Trends, issues, and problems of engineering education and engineering pedagogy are currently discussed at some global forums and conferences held by international engineering education societies. Along with the ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) Conference, the international scientific and educational community is increasingly interested in the International Conference on ICL (Interactive Collaborative Learning) and engineering education supported by IGIP (International Society for Engineering Pedagogy). Formats used by WEEF (World Engineering Education Forum), GEDC (Global Engineering Deans Council), etc., are being borrowed in the practice of holding annual events in Russia. This can be exemplified by the Russian Petrochemical Forum held in Ufa, Republic of Bashkortostan; St. Petersburg International Gas Forum, Tyumen Oil and Gas Professionals Forum, and Tatarstan Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals Forum held in Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan. Within the latter one, a round table named Human Resourcing for Petrochemical Enterprises: Issues of Engineering Pedagogy Development is held in Kazan annually.

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Experiences accumulated in participating in international engineering education conferences and in industry-focused forums have led the colleagues from various engineering universities from different countries to creating a new model of interaction. The idea of holding an international conference in a new, distributed network format was born at WEEF in Florence, Italy in 2015. It was decided to pool within one conference several universities and sites, with the cross-cutting themes of its sections dealing with the most urgent issues of engineering education, training and re-training engineers, and upskilling those teaching at engineering universities. Thus, since 2016, the International Science and Practice SYNERGY Network Conference has been a global discussion site in Russia. Its theorists and organizers are IGIP, AEER (Association for Engineering Education of Russia), and the largest Russian technological university located in Kazan. Later, during developing and promoting the project, the largest international engineering education societies joint it, such as IFEES (International Federation of Engineering Education Societies), SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education), as well as the Russian educational authorities, AEER, the Russian National Training Foundation, some leading engineering universities of Russia, and regional authorities. In keeping with the best practices of well-known global conferences, SYNERGY is supported by Gazprom, the largest energy company that shares the goals, tasks, and mission of the network conference dealing with developing engineering education. Therefore, among the key organizers and participants, there are the so-called flagship universities of Gazprom. Currently, such flagship universities amount for 14, plus 1 more university having a special status (Fig. 1) [3].

Fig. 1. Gazprom flagship universities on the map of Russia

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3 Goals, Tasks and Forms of Holding the Conference Since the idea of holding SYNERGY started up, the conference goal has been defined as the collaborative involved discussion of the best practices and current trends in developing engineering education, considering the needs of real economy, as well as developing recommendations on improving the same. One of the main conference tasks is to combine within its framework the efforts of public structures and private businesses, that is, to support public-private partnership. The scientific basis of the conference includes the best scientific and practical developments of the participating universities, as well as the theoretical interpretation of the engineering education practices, on the one hand, and the staffing needs of industry-focused enterprises, on the other hand. Project management methods and interdisciplinary teamworking methods have been implemented in the activities aimed at organizing the conferences. These approaches seem to have essential advantages, as compared to the classical activity management methods used in preparing and holding workshops, seminars, conferences, symposiums, etc. The conference conception assumes annually considering the most actual engineering education problem that is reflected in the themes of individual plenary sessions held at several universities during the year. All flagship universities participate in each plenary session face-to-face or virtually. Organizers define the clear structure and the schedule of conferences, which assumes holding at least five sessions on the premises of different universities within the year. Unlike conferences held on the one-time basis and devoted to an anniversary event or the like, annual conferences allow professionals maintain and extend their contacts to various groups of researchers, be informed on modern developments, and get necessary information faster. Its ingenious network-based format ensures involving a considerable number of the representatives of flagship universities and enterprises, first of all, Gazprom’s affiliates, as well as other industry-focused enterprises interacting with the partner universities of the conference. Methodology and technology of SYNERGY mean holding sessions, round tables, and video sessions on the premises of different universities, and the final plenary session at one of the leading universities of Russia. SYNERGY’s program includes all advanced forms of holding scientific forums: Plenary sessions; Round tables; Expert seminars; Panel discussions; Master classes; and Video conferences broadcasted in the Internet via the websites of relevant universities.

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During each session, all participating universities and the representative of employers join it simultaneously.

4 Experience in Holding the Conference Over three years, the network format of the conference has allowed pooling together the efforts and experiences of several hundreds of colleagues from throughout Russia and from all over the world. Since 2017, the most important events and a mandatory stage of SYNERGY have become foreign sessions involving the representatives of Russian universities within annual IGIP conferences. Initially (Budapest in 2017), Russian contributors and participants prevailed at the session. Network events of SYNERGY’2017 and ’2018 considerably contributed to popularizing the IGIP/ICL conferences among Russian universities. At the conference in Greece (Kos Island, 2018), the increasing number of Russian participants in SYNERGY were reasonably distributed by the organizers among various sessions in order to disseminate Russian experience in engineering education and diversify ideas for subsequent SYNERGY conferences. Representatives of Gazprom’s flagship universities gave master classes and supervised the work of the sections. This was largely contributed to by their experience in participating in SYNERGY events. At the same time, the number of articles submitted by Russian authors to the conference is growing, and the joint work with scientists from partner universities of SYNERGY is increasing. In 2018, the original SYNERGY format was creatively modified. In one form or another, several new Russian and foreign universities, as well as other Russian oil and gas companies, such as Lukoil and Sibur, joined the project. This is a direct consequence and confirmation of the effectiveness of the ways and methods selected to manage this project: Planned organizational work of SYNERGY founders based on a system analysis of all conference phases completed and its outcomes, development of scientific, educational, and personal contacts of scientists, administrators, representatives of the business community in the framework of SYNERGY and IGIP/ICL conferences, scientific understanding of the problems raised at these conferences, and successful professional activities of partner universities. Its content is also changing in many ways, considering the trends in modern engineering education, discussed at SYNERGY sessions and at IGIP/ICL conferences, and also as a result of borrowing the experience of SYNERGY partner universities and developing their interaction beyond its sessions [2]. Today, about 20 major engineering universities are participating in the project (some universities joint or took a pause in different years), most of which are the socalled flagship universities of the sponsor company. Taking into account the Russian scale and traditions, SYNERGY organizers attach special importance to the geography of the project and to the fact that it does not represent the universities of capital cities only.

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5 Stages of the Conference SYNERGY organization includes all the stages necessary for holding a conference [4], but they are largely filled with great content due to the network format and the distributed system of organizers and participants. It should be added that managing a project usually begins with the initiation stage – making the decision to start the project [5, 6]. This, in our opinion, is followed by the stages below: - Planning. The effectiveness of this stage is ensured by a brainstorm with the participation of scientists from KNRTU and consultations with representatives of flagship universities, the business community. The most important tasks of this stage include defining the subject of the conference, the venue for network and plenary sessions, keynote speakers, working events with partner organizations. One key subject or problem is determined annually, which, however, can be adapted by network session organizers to the discussion they are interested in. Thus, the subject of SYNERGY’2018 took the interests of employers into account and was devoted to integrative training of engineers and workers for petrochemistry, including as related to WorldSkills Championship to be held in Kazan, Russia in 2019. Another subject, the growth of labor productivity, was due to the orders from enterprises of the Republic of Tatarstan, where the KNRTU is located, for advanced staff training. Discussions at individual sections of the conference covered innovations in engineering education, new educational technologies, methods, didactic teaching methods, competencies and quality of engineer training, interaction of industrial companies and universities in this process; the system of teaching and advanced training of teachers, as well as the need for early engineering vocational guidance for schoolchildren (we note that this is a rather innovative area for engineering universities). But the agenda of the final plenary session of 2018 at the largest Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas was expanded and devoted to the problems of digitalization of engineering education. Representatives of universities, ministries and departments, the National Council on Qualifications, engineering centers and leading Russian companies discussed the need to promote digitalization of education through new educational process, introduction of new educational technologies, including interdisciplinary training in project and production activities. The participants also considered a model of the modern engineering university 4.0 and its interaction with the high-tech industry. The theme of the final session was the keynote of SYNERGY’2019; – Organizational Stage 1. Formation of working groups, organizing committee, program committee, appointment of chairman and co-chairs of the organizing committee and the program committee; unlike traditional conferences, a scientific secretary and a coordinator of network sessions are also appointed at the SYNERGY conferences. Detailing the topics of network sessions, structuring the sections of the plenary conference, appointing section moderators; defining the circle of guests of the conference and invited participants from among scientists and specialists in engineering education of Russian and foreign universities, leaders and specialists of educational and industrial institutions, representatives of professional and public associations, government bodies, etc. Developing the texts of information letters and content of advertising materials, defining the requirements to

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publications, selecting high rating journals to be published and editions included in the global citation bases. In addition, for SYNERGY, catalogs of educational programs of Gazprom’s flagship universities are published almost annually, which significantly expands the choice for potential customers and consumers and allows universities themselves to diversify the set of educational programs supported by partner universities; – Information stage. A special feature of this stage for SYNERGY is that the starting point for information and invitation letters dissemination is Gazprom’s letter to the heads of flagship universities about the next annual conference, designating the responsible person – KNRTU, and with a list of activity sessions in Gazprom’s flagship universities; – Organizational Stage 2. Forming the conference program based on the confirmed participation of the representatives of flagship universities and of the invited speakers; – Holding the conference. Established SYNERGY forms: plenary sessions, round tables, expert workshops, panel discussions, videoconferences with broadcasting on the Internet through universities’ websites – are getting creative development. Thus, in 2018, in addition to the classical plenary sections at five universities in different parts of the country, round tables were held on personnel issues in the industry, as well as the Youth Innovation Convention in Ukhta, the Komi Republic, in the north of Russia. SYNERGY’2018 included the following events. Tyumen, Industrial University of Tyumen, 26 April. International Scientific and Methodological Conference “Problems of Engineering and Socio-Economic Education at a Technical University in the Context of Technical Education Modernization” with the publication of a collection of Russian Science Citation Index articles. Ufa, Ufa State Petroleum Technical University, 24 May. Round table on personnel issues in petrochemical industry. Tomsk, AEER – Tomsk Polytechnic National Research University, 5–6 June. Conference titled “Modern Technologies of the Integrative Training of Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Engineers.” Kazan, KNRTU, 5–6 September. Plenary Session of SYNERGY’2018: Integrative Training of Inline Engineers to Enhance the Performance of Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Enterprises. Mirny Polytechnic Institute (branch) of North-Eastern Federal University, Mirny, Sakha Republic (Yakutia), 20 September. Conference: Implementing the WorldSkills Standards in the Basic Educational Programs of Higher and Secondary Vocational Education to Train Professionals for the Fuel & Energy Complex of Russia. Kos Island, Greece, 25–28 September. 21st International Conference on ICL/IGIP, “The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education.” Ukhta, Ukhta State Technical University, 11 October. Youth Innovation Convention. Moscow, Higher School of Economics, 31 October. Round table on the issues of using digital technology in training oil and gas personnel.

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Moscow, I.M. Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, 28–29 November. Final session of SYNERFGY’2018: Training Inline Engineers for Oil & Gas and Petrochemical Enterprises. The final stage of project activities is the “acceptance” stage, i.e., assessing the outcomes, generating reports, and summing up. They are usually described minutely in scientific publications [2].

6 “Synergetic” Effect as a Successful Idea Management Outcome Over the three years of regularly holding SYNERGY, the conference has become an efficient interdisciplinary public-private project. It is characterized by a clear organizational structure, sustainable financial and human resources, and a conceptual background supported with scientific developments. In the context of decrease in the academic mobility of the students and teachers from Russian universities, the main outcome of such project is their extended opportunities. Therefore, universities demonstrate an increased interest in national events and possibilities of discussion meetings with their colleagues from both Russian and foreign educational institutions, especially industry-focused ones. Another important outcome of SYNERGY is establishing, extending, and strengthening direct contacts of the universities to businesses through participating in the conference. Discussing this idea in 2015, the theorists and organizers of SYNERGY expected an incremental effect of its events on all the participants: For engineering universities, for engineering students and teachers, for researchers, and for engineering educationalists. As a result, employers get better trained and motivated personnel and an opportunity to actively participate in discussing the issues of training their would-be staff within the framework of the basic higher and further vocational education. This hypothesis is proven by the experience of holding SYNERGY in the subsequent years, including the first events of 2019. Although teachers and representatives of business community mostly act as audience at the plenary sessions of the conference, they have a unique opportunity to get to know about new educational trends and techniques, about the results of psychological and pedagogical studies in higher education, about the employers’ attitude towards the graduates of the participating universities, about global trends and achievements of Russian and foreign higher education, about promising areas in developing theoretical and practical science and research, etc. [7–9]. Afterwards, this information is used in professional activities. Presenting researchers or practical experts often have different viewpoints, take polar positions, or formulate controversial theoretical statements. All this stimulates research and academic activities and motivates to discussions and new meetings. Discussions at Round Tables do not have so rigid boundaries as those at sessions. One of the key positive outcomes of SYNERGY is permanently developing the interaction of the colleagues participating in the conference and the incremental process of scientific and academic collaboration. It includes the joint research and publications of the participants, applications for grants, exchanging and using the best practices in

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organizing teaching/learning process, etc. Teachers participating in the conference sessions improve their qualifications and teaching abilities and actively communicate with their colleagues. New contacts are established, and all participants “crosspollinate” with ideas and practical developments. The growth in numbers of papers accepted for proceedings and prepared by the KNRTU authors only provides strong evidence regarding the consistent and systematic development of academic creativity, the increase in the diversity of research topics, and the increase in the quality of papers announced for publishing. The university started with 3–5 reports announced traditionally, then increased the number of reports to 10– 15, and finally, its announced 35 reports to be held in 2019. According to the outcomes of their collaborative activities, the conference participants develop practically important recommendations addressed to flagship universities, Ministry of Education, and Gazprom. These may cause essential changes in the process of training engineers. The reports of the leading researchers from the participating universities are published in the leading Russian journals in the area of vocational education [3]. One of the most important outcomes of the conferences is extending the business and research connections of the representatives of Gazprom’s flagship universities, as well as the increased publishing activities of teaching personnel, including publishing in foreign titles, such as IGIP and ASEE proceedings included in Scopus, the international citation base. During the conference, the new organizational ideas are generated, including those of expanding the events around SYNERGY. In 2018, an agreement was made among the SYNERGY participants regarding holding some collaborative events for the students and teachers of Gazprom’s flagship universities. This means organizing youth summer schools, practical studies, internships, conferences, competitions, sport contests, cultural events, etc. A new mechanism of funding the conference has also been outlined, namely distributing the sponsor’s donations among the organizers of individual sessions. Positive feedback from the participants of the conference sessions held in 2017 contributed to the Gazprom’s decision on making SYNERGY an annual conference. Statistics of SYNERGY events speaks volumes about this. Over as few as three years of SYNERGY’s existence, about 1,300 people have already participated in its events, and about 350 articles have been published, including about 30 articles in the journals issued by the Higher Attestation Commission of Russia and over 35 articles in titles included in the databases of Scopus and Web of Science.

7 Project Outcomes and Outlooks The first documented conference dates to 416 BC. That was a feast of the Athenian tragic poet Agathon’s friends, where each of those present soliloquized about Eros, the god of love. Noble citizens were usually present at ancient conferences. At SYNERGY that will surely become known in the history of the Russian engineering education, all the participants speak about their favorite topics, too, especially the topics related to engineering or to improving and developing engineering education. And “noble

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citizens,” i.e., those highly committed to and enriched with new knowledge, are responsively bringing it to student audiences, research laboratories, further training system, management structures, and production systems. Holding the International Science and Practice SYNERGY Network Conference pursues and achieve important goals, such as developing public-private partnership, modernizing the contents of educational programs, further training of the conference participants, disseminating new educational technologies, using digital formats and digitalizing education on the Russian scale, and extending partner relations to customer companies. Interim results of the conferences held emphasize the considerable effects provided on the university representatives who adopt best practices and experiences and learning methods, learn from each other, “cross-pollinate,” and get feedback from employers regarding the personnel training quality and the improvements to be made on curricula and learning methods. Everyone stands to benefit from such exchange: Engineering students, universities, and enterprises. Ideas and recommendations developed by the colleagues allow us to conclude that the synergism of the efforts expended by the interested participants of innovatively developing the process of training engineers at universities within the global trends enables creating the unified space of higher engineering and technological education. Digitally transforming education and universities, as well as expert discussions [5, 10], determined the choice of the topics for the next conference, which is Engineering Education: Transformation Issues for Industry 4.0, SYNERGY’2019. Its anticipated structure includes 4 sections having rather conventional, but inevitably actual titles: Engineering Education Development Strategies, Top Personnel Training, Further Vocational Education, and Interaction of Engineering Education with Business and Industry. Keeping traditions and commitment to upgrading as a factor of sustainable development is another positive outcome of implementing the SYNERGY project. The appreciable synergetic effect of the shared activities of the interested project participants ensures its successful continuation.

References 1. Yushko, S.V., Galikhanov, M.F., Kondratyev, V.V.: Integrative training of future engineers for innovative activities in conditions of post-industrial economy. In: Higher Education in Russia, no. 1. pp. 65–75 (2019) 2. Barabanova, S.V., Kaybiyaynen, A.A., Kraysman, N.V.: Digitalization of education in the global context. In: Higher Education in Russia, no. 1, pp. 94–103 (2019) 3. Ivanov, V., Barabanova, S., Galikhanov, M., Kaybiyaynen, A., Suntsova, M.: International network conference: new technologies of interaction for the development of engineering education. In: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Vol. 916. The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2018, vol. 1, pp. 472–482. Springer (2018) 4. https://infourok.ru/konferenciyavidiformi-i-pravila-uchastiya-3162136.html

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5. Pavlichenko, N.V., Lapin, V.O., Vasilchenko, A.A.: Prospects of using research project management methods at educational and research institutions within the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. In: Law and Education, pp. 4–14 (2017) 6. Sanger, P.A., Pavlova, I.V., Shageeva, F.T., Khatsrinova, O.Y., Ivanov, V.G.: Introducing project based learning into traditional Russian education. In: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 715, pp. 821–829 (2018) 7. Khatsrinova, O., Barabanova, S., Khatsrinova, J.: The main trends in the development of engineering education: the role of the university teacher in systemic changes. In: Teaching and Learning in a Digital World. ICL2018 – 21th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Kos Island, Greece, 25–28 September 2018, pp. 1223–1231. http:// icl-onference.org/proceedings/ICL2018_proceedings.zip 8. Galikhanov, M., Yushko, S., Shageeva, F., Guzhova, A.: Entrepreneurial competency development of the engineering students at the research university. In: International Network Conference: New Technologies of Interaction for the Development of Engineering Education. Teaching and Learning in a Digital World, ICL2018 – 21st International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Kos Island, Greece, 25–28 September 2018, pp. 318–326. http://icl-onference.org/proceedings/ICL2018_proceedings.zip 9. Shageeva, F., Bogoudinova, R., Kraysman, N.: Teachers-researchers training at technological university. In: Teaching and Learning in a Digital World. ICL2018 – 21st International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Kos Island, Greece, 25–28 September 2018, pp. 1699–1703. http://icl-onference.org/proceedings/ICL2018_proceedings.zip 10. Klyuyev, A.K., Kuzminov, Ya.I.: Challenges and prospects of universities in Russia: an interview conducted. Rector of the Higher School of Economics. In: University Management: Practice and Analysis, vol. 22(4) (2018)

Development of Research-Based RRSDI Learning Model for Telecommunication Engineering Education Nattapong Intarawiset1(&), Sivadol Noulnoppadol2, Rattapon Jeenawong3, and Somsak Akatimagool1 1

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King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected] Rattaphum College Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya, Songkhla, Thailand [email protected] Rajamangala University of Technology Lanna, Chiang Mai, Thailand [email protected]

Abstract. The paper presents the development of an instructional package using a research-based model for learning in telecommunication engineering. The model includes 5 steps (requirement, reviewing, solution, discussion and improvement) has been tested on a student group and has been assessed by several course instructors. The developed RRSDI learning model can encourage learners to have more participation in learning activities and highly learning achievement. The active RRSDI learning model can promote students to research and develop novel knowledge and to solve the problems by themselves using research results and methodology. The research results of the developed RRSDI learning model was assessed by five experts and then was implemented on 15 undergraduate students of microwave engineering course. The quality of the developed RRSDI learning model was appropriate (mean = 4.10, S.D. = 0.22) and was efficient with regards to Meguigans’ theory. The student’s satisfaction for the developed RRSDI learning model was at a high level. Moreover, the research results can be applied in order to create an effective innovation for learning and teaching of higher education. Keywords: Research-based learning
RRSDI learning model Telecommunication engineering education




1 Introduction Nowadays, microwave technology has been developed rapidly, even if microwave education has changed over several years [1]. Considering education management, in telecommunication engineering curriculum is assigned on practical application [2–5]. The experimental teaching is obviously important because theoretical knowledge of

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telecommunication engineering course is comparatively conceptual and complicated to understand thereby affecting the experimental teaching trends. Furthermore, it was difficult to obtain an understanding what students actually do in the laboratory. It was important to analyze students’ activities during complete labs in what they experienced as normal settings [6]. So, the teacher should simplify and illustrate the sophisticated theory, practical examples to make it comfortable and convenience for students [7–9]. Research-based learning is a methodological designed that empowered the impact, knowledge transfer, and applying educational research for knowledge improvement. The model is very crucial for creating new theory and the development of teaching methods to guide, inform, and improve theory, practice and research in educational contexts [10, 11]. Furthermore, educators have developed guidelines for organizing activities which are beneficial to learners using research-based learning to achieve better learning and teaching effect on telecommunication engineering education. The purposes of this research are to develop the research-based RRSDI learning model and to construct the RRSDI based instructional package for application in learning and teaching of microwave engineering course. The quality of the developed instructional package evaluated by the experts should be at high level and the efficiency of the RRSDI learning model is consistent to Meguigans’ theory.

2 The RRSDI Instructional Package Design Research-based learning is a learning model which associated learners and lecturers to improve application of knowledge and effective way to change students’ learning and to practice by doing that is supplement a student-centered learning model using integrated research into the learning process. Research-based learning is based on instruction which uses realization of learning, problem solving, cooperative learning, hands on, and inquiry discovery approach, guided by a constructivist philosophy stated by Poonpan [12]. The abilities of students who have studied using research-based learning can accept concepts of physics and research methods, solving problems, creative thinking, logically and systematically, scientific perspective, try to investigate the truth, and open-mindedness for new things as stated in [13]. Similarly, designed learning model of engineering education is most commonly used methodology described by Takeda et al. [14]. A major strength of this design is that the underlying theory based on the synonymous of iterative process used in the development and evaluation of contrivance. The refinement of the designed contrivance is consistent with the development of the research-based learning. This design is shown in Fig. 1.

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Action level Awareness of problem Decision on a problem to be solved

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Fig. 1. The design loop according to Takeda et al. [14].

Consequently, this paper aims to develop research-based RRSDI learning model which the process of developed RRSDI learning model consists of 5 steps as follow. (1) Requirement (R) is a step to determine the research scope, related issues and instructors must motivate students to focus on problem or discover knowledge. The learner must clearly identify relevant issues and assign the research hypothesis. (2) Reviewing (R) is a process that provides students to review and to study the related data from searching and self-studying. The teacher’s role is to explain fundamental theory and introduce sources of knowledge and how to use the instructional media for problem solving. (3) Solution (S) is a method which students take consolidated knowledge to solve the problems by using diverse instructional media. In this step, students will be developed their practical skills, creative thinking skill to solve the problems by themselves. (4) Discussion (D) is a step where students share and exchange knowledge, experiences in their research work in the class. The teachers are facilitator to help and solve the learning problems. (5) Improvement (I) is a step which the knowledge is improved and summarized. The learners’ achievement will be measured and evaluated. In this paper, the research-based RRSDI learning model, as shown in Fig. 2, will be developed using several teaching and research activities, and implemented with

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undergraduate students registered in microwave engineering or related course at King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand.

Fig. 2. The RRSDI learning model

Then, we analyzed curriculum of microwave engineering course for education in bachelor’s degree, department of teacher training in electrical engineering, faculty of technical education at King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. The content in this work focuses on 3 topics consisting of principle of microwave filter circuit, microwave filter circuit design, microwave filters analysis and measurement. The instructional package including teacher’s manual, microwave filters experiment set, simulation program, worksheet, media presentations, achievement test, was developed using the RRSDI learning model. The detail of instructional package is following. Teacher’s manual provides teaching schedule following to the RRSDI learning based instructional package, as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. The Teacher’s manual of instructional package

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Simulation programs based on MATLAB program and commercial simulators were created for students to help in calculating parameters of microwave filter circuit and generate realization structure circuit to analyze designed circuit parameters, as shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. The MATLAB based simulation programs

Worksheets are used for specific condition in problem solving, research framework, research results that will be recorded and discussed by students. Media presentation is essential in knowledge transfer which is presented on PowerPoint to help instructors to convey knowledge content to students. Achievement test is used for measuring and evaluating learning achievement in according to behavioral objectives of each lesson. Experiment set of microwave filters consists of waveguide filter circuit, microstrip filter circuit. It helps develop students’ practical skills and specific learning outcome of engineering curriculum, as illustrated in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. The prototype of experiment set

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3 Research Methodology The research methodology in developing RRSDI learning model is illustrated in Fig. 6. The first step is study learning and teaching issues using research-based learning. Next, teaching method and curriculum in microwave engineering course were analyzed. Then, to create the instructional package that consists of teacher instructional, microwave filters experiment set, simulation program, worksheet, media presentations, and achievement test. After that, the developed RRSDI learning model was evaluated by five experts who have teaching experience in the field of electronic and telecommunication engineering. Subsequently, the developed RRSDI learning model was implemented on 15 undergraduate students who registered in microwave engineering or related course at King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand. Finally, the research data of the achievement test, student’s satisfaction questionnaires were collected and analyzed using mean, standard deviation.

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Fig. 6. Process of research methodology

4 Research Result The developed research-based RRSDI learning model was implemented with a sampling group of 15 undergraduate students at department of teaching training in electrical engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (KMUTNB), Thailand. The results are divided into four parts; (1) The evaluation of the quality of the developed RRSDI learning model based on research methodology.

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(2) The development of the RRSDI based instructional package consists of the teacher manual, instructional media, such as PowerPoint presentation, simulation program, experiment set and achievement tests, (3) The evaluation of the instructional package efficiency using the RRSDI learning model. (4) The evaluation of student’s satisfaction for the developed RRSDI learning model. 4.1

The Results of the RRSDI Learning Model

The results of the quality for the developed learning model by five instructors who have teaching experience in electronic and telecommunication engineering. It was found that the developed RRSDI learning model was highly appropriate with the evaluation mean of 4.05, and S.D. equals to 0.21, as shown in Table 1. Table 1. Evaluation of the RRSDI learning model Evaluation criteria 1. The 2. The 3. The 4. The Total

4.2

Appropriation level Average S.D. Interpretation developed l RRSDI earning model 3.60 0.55 High teaching activities 4.00 0.71 High instructional media 4.40 0.55 High measurement and evaluation 4.20 0.45 High 4.05 0.21 High

The Evaluation Results for Instructional Package

The developed RRSDI instructional package consists of a teacher’s manual on microwave filter circuit design, the PowerPoint presentation, instructional tools such as microwave filters experiment set, simulation program using GUI function of MATLAB and full wave electromagnetic simulator using CST Microwave Studio, worksheet, achievement tests and learner’s satisfaction questionnaire. The overall appropriateness of the developed instructional tools was at a high level with the mean of 4.10 and S.D. equaled to 0.34, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Evaluation of the instructional tools Evaluation criteria

Appropriation level Average S.D. Interpretation 1. The teacher manual 3.80 0.45 High 2. PPT presentation media 4.20 0.84 High 3. The simulation tool 4.40 0.55 High 4. Measurement and evaluation 4.00 0.71 High Total 4.10 0.34 High

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The Results of the Efficiency of RRSDI Learning Model

The developed RRSDI learning model was implemented using 15 sampling students to try out the data. Students must take the pretest and posttest, before and after attending the learning session, respectively. For the implementation, the teaching and learning in microwave engineering course using the developed RRSDI learning model based on research methodology, the learners determine the research scope, review and study related data from searching and self-studying, solving the problems by using diverse instructional media, sharing and exchanging knowledge and experiences in their research work and improved and summarized by measure and learning achievement evaluation, as shown in the Fig. 7.

Fig. 7. The developed RRSDI learning model implementation in classroom

The data was collected and analyzed for efficiency validation using the Meguigans’ ratio as shown in Table 3. It was found that the developed RRSDI learning model was efficient as the Meguigans’ ratio was higher than 1.00 (Meguigans’ ration = 1.09).

Table 3. Efficiency in RRSDI learning model Score Total score Highest score Lowest score Average Meguigans’ ratio Pre-test 20 10 4 5.47 1.09 Post-test 20 19 10 14.63

4.4

The Results of Satisfaction of Instructional Package

Table 4 depicts the evaluation results of the developed RRSDI learning model by 15 students, as shown in the Fig. 8. The learning model was suitable for teaching in Engineering at the highest level (mean = 4.67). The overall satisfaction evaluation showed that the RRSDI learning model was at the high level with the mean of 4.47 with the S.D. of 0.74.

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Fig. 8. The evaluation of learner’s satisfaction for developed RRSDI learning model

Table 4. Evaluation of learner’s satisfaction on instructional package Evaluation topic

Satisfaction level Average S.D. Interpretation (1) Consistency with course objectives 4.07 0.59 High (2) Procedure of RRSDI Model 4.20 0.68 High (3) Instructional media 4.33 0.62 High (4) Measurement and evaluation 4.20 0.77 High (5) Teaching activity 3.87 1.06 High (6) Encourage learners to practice 4.47 0.74 High (7) Encourage learners to work as a team 4.27 0.70 High (8) Encourage learners to solve problems 3.93 0.96 High (9) Suitable for teaching engineering 4.67 0.49 Highest (10) Application in daily life 4.07 0.80 High Total 4.21 0.50 High

5 Conclusion This paper presents the developed RRSDI learning model for telecommunication engineering education. We scoped the topic in microwave engineering course by using research-based learning and teaching. The evaluation results indicated that the developed RRSDI learning model and instructional package by experts was appropriate at a high level and the efficiency of developed RRSDI learning model was at a standard criterion according to Meguigans’ formula (equal to 1.09). The results of students’ satisfaction on instructional package was at a high level that is suitable for engineering education. The developed research-based RRSDI learning model for learning and teaching in microwave engineering course provides learners essential knowledge, skills and work experience through integration of research process that is consistent with the learning in 21st century. The developed learning model can be applicable to other related areas of interrelated helpfulness for telecommunication engineering education and many connected areas of collaborative research that can contribute not only to engineering learning but to science and technology learning.

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Acknowledgment. This research has been granted financial support by Graduate College and King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. Also, we would like to acknowledge Dr. Thanawit Bunsit for proofreading and for some comments on this paper.

References 1. Gupta, K.C., Itoh, T., Oliner, A.A.: Microwave and RF education-past, present, and future. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech. 50(3), 1006–1014 (2002) 2. Gupta, T., Prachi, A.S.M., Akhtar, M.J., Srivastava, K.V.: Development of the virtual lab module for understanding the concepts of electric and magnetic field patterns in rectangular waveguides and cavities. Int. J. Online Eng. 8(3), 12–21 (2012) 3. Zhou, X.: Reform and research on experimental teaching for high frequency electronic circuit. In: 2010 International Conference on E-Health Networking Digital Ecosystems and Technologies (EDT), Shenzhen, pp. 168–170 (2010) 4. Chen, H., He, M., Pan, Y., Yang, S.: The status of research teaching in China. In: 2010 International Conference on Education and Management Technology, Cairo, pp. 604–607 (2010) 5. Pejcinovic, B., Campbell, R.L.: Active learning, hardware projects and reverse instruction in microwave/RF education. In: 2013 European Radar Conference, Nuremberg, pp. 259–262 (2013) 6. Carstensen, A.-K., Bernhard, J.: Design science research – a powerful tool for improving methods in engineering education research. Eur. J. Eng. Educ. 44(1–2), 85–102 (2019) 7. Gubsky, D.S., Zemlyakov, V.V., Mamay, I.V.: The microwave virtual laboratory for RF engineers’ education. In: 10th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference (EuMIC), Paris, pp. 460–463 (2015) 8. Augmenting mathematics courses by project-based learning. In: 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Florence, pp. 124–127 (2015) 9. Richardson, K.J., Fernandez, H.J., Basinet, K.R., Klein, A.G., Martin, R.K.: A making and gaming approach to learning about RF path loss and antenna design. In: 2018 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC), Princeton, NJ, pp. 247–253 (2018) 10. Anderson, T., Shattuck, J.: Design-based research: a decade of progress in education research? Educ. Res. 41(1), 16–25 (2012) 11. Susiani, T.S., Salimi, M., Hidayah, R.: Research Based Learning (RBL): how to improve critical thinking skills? In: SHS Web Conference, vol. 42 (2018) 12. Poonpan, S., Siriphan, S.: Indicators of research–based learning instructional process: a case study of best practice in a primary school. Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University Phaya Thai, Bangkok, Thailand (2001) 13. Usmeldi, U., Amini, R., Trisna, S.: The development of research-based learning model with science, environment, technology, and society approaches to improve critical thinking of students. J. Pendidikan IPA Indonesia 6(2), 318–325 (2017) 14. Takeda, H., Veerkamp, P., Tomiyama, T., Yoshikawa, H.: Modeling design processes. AI Mag. 11(4), 37–48 (1990)

A Development of Instructional Package Using Problem-Based Learning for Power System Transients Phanuphon Siriwithtayathanakun(&) and Pichet Sriyanpong(&) King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. This paper purposes to develop instructional package by using Problem-Based Learning for power system transients in case study of Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) which has developed the instructional package of problem-based learning for power system transients from the real problems in the power system by designing and creating instructional package such as teacher manuals which consist of activity plans, content paper, activities, tests, instruction media and program manuals, etc.. They are used for teaching and learning 4 units: basic of electrical power system, power system simulation, simulation program and case studies of power system transients which directed to 5 experts in order to assess the quality of the instructional package. It was found that the developed instructional package was appropriate extremely. After that, the experiment was conducted with a sample group of 30 undergraduate students enrolled in the power system analysis course, graduate technical education curriculum, electrical engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. The achievement of learners through the learning process with the instructional package by performance testing according to the Meguigans’s standard criteria is equal to 1.09. In addition, the learners were satisfied at a high level. Keywords: Problem-Based learning transients


Instructional package
Power system

1 Introduction Presently, the human resource development is important to promote learners to have more knowledge and skills for solving problems in day-life. Considering the development of high level labors in energy industry, MEA has the strategy map in developing engineers’ competencies in the power distribution system. As the power outage statistics of MEA’s power system control department found that the important problems in the power system effecting to outage is the power system transients [1]. The system transient makes error of the electrical equipment and to have malfunctioning of the prevented system. Therefore, the active learning model called the problem-based learning [2, 3] can be used in producing the new graduates to have expected competencies in the power system for creative thinking, analyzing and solving the those problems [4, 5]. In this paper, we will study and best trend of learning model for © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 684–695, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_65

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MEA’s existent solving problem such as the problem of releasing the circuit breaker when the power system was fault [6], capacitor-bank switching problem [7]. In addition, non-commercial software called ATP-EMTP [1] is applied to simulate and analyze those problems, finding information, and integrating the new knowledge appropriately which can be used in the actual situations. The learners may not need to have knowledge or the basis before learning, so the problem based learning will focus on the learners’ learning process importantly. The teacher works as facilitator and determine problems or simulations which consistent with the objectives of the course and provide a good atmosphere and prepare various learning resources for the learners in order to make the learners try to find the knowledge and skills which related to that problem. It is an important aspect of learning by using problems as a base which can be considered that learning is a model helps learners to have knowledge and skills which can work in the real situation and develop the electrical engineer’s professionalism.

2 The Problem-Based MIAP Learning Model The guidelines for teaching and learning by using the MIAP learning process [8] is following to the behaviour objective of curriculum. The development of content, teaching method and materials as input factors can make learners to change their behaviour in learning. The learning process consists of 4 steps as Motivation (M) leads to the lessons that excite the learners to be interesting in the lesson, Information (I) is providing content and studying the information, Application (A) is applying the learners’ knowledge, and Progress (P) is the examining and evaluating the learning achievement. The development of the problem-based learning model in this research, will integrate the teaching and learning methodology by using problem-based into MIAP learning process. In order to increase the effectiveness of learners’ learning, the real problems and simulated situation are assigned and analyzed in classroom. In order to obtain the expected learning outcomes, the exchanging opinions between learners and teacher will be the best teaching way. The problem-based learning process is shown in Fig. 1 and Table 1.

Fig. 1. The problem-based MIAP learning model

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MIAP learning Problem-based learning Remark process Motivation (M) Lead to the lesson Stimulating learners’ interesting Information (I) Searching information Self-learning Classroom teaching Application (A) 1. Situation determining Organizing activities which focus on learners to 2. Problem identification participate in learning by using problems-based learning 3. Problem analysis 4. Problem solving Progress (P) 5. Knowledge exchange Knowledge adjustment Measurement and evaluation

3 Development of Instructional Package The creation of the instructional package in this paper will be the development of instructional package for power system transients in case study of MEA which consists of teacher manual, lesson and activities plans, instruction media and tests, as detailed below:(1) Teacher manual for learning management that uses the problem- based learning, and for teaching power systems transients in case study of MEA (2) Instructional media which is used to support teaching and learning according to the problem-based learning consists of various media as follows:– Presentation Program (PowerPoint) is a program to present the power system transients in case study of MEA which contains content, basic power system, electrical system model, creation the power system transients model and case study of power system transients (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. PowerPoint media

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– ATP-EMTP program [1] is a program for analyzing electrical systems and the power system transients which can actually simulate the electrical system according to the phenomena that occur in the power system. There are 2 problems in learning, namely the problem of releasing the circuit breaker when the power system was fault and the problem of switching capacitor banks which will be used as a instructional media of problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA as follows:-

Case study 1: The problem of disconnecting the circuit breaker while the fault occurred [6]. In case study of power system transients due to electrical disturbances that occur in MEA’s power transmission system, there are various types. Each type has different of an impact on the power system and the protection system of power transmission systems which may cause damage to the material or the system malfunction. The impact on the power system will cause the voltage changing, the frequency of the system is changed or shifted and may cause the system releasing the load or the low frequency relay [9] does not work properly until the command is released. Therefore, from various events become to the source of studying the problems in the power system which problems may affect the voltage and frequency when disturbed from disconnecting the circuit breaker while there is a fault in the power supply system when the sergeant has occurred such as the connection/release of the circuit breaker, especially in the case of occurred fault, it will cause the phase shift or vector surge, which will cause the low voltage relay that the voltage of the power system decreases or the waveform of the voltage occurred serge will be greater. For this problem may cause the discharge circuit working; therefore, it ordered the circuit breaker to be released according to the low voltage setting of the reloading system and may cause the power off for a while, such as the case of the transmission line of the terminal station was supplied to the Nonthaburi Substation when the fault occurs at a distance of 10 km, the power system will occur surge from connection/release of the circuit breaker, especially in the case of a fault, which will cause the phase voltage dropping. This event will cause low voltage relays that make the voltage of the power system has changed, decreased or changed period. It sometimes causing the discharge circuit to work; therefore, it ordered the circuit breaker removed according to the low voltage setting of the reloading system. The problem as above can be created instructional media of releasing the circuit breaker when the power system was fault. From the actual data, it takes to analyze the problems that can be displayed in various waveforms such as voltage and currents etc. which is shown in Fig. 3 creating model of the power system transients [10] by ATPEMTP program.

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Fig. 3. Instructional media from ATP-EMTP program: the problem of releasing the circuit breaker when the power system was fault

Case study 2: Capacitor banks switching problem [7] Increasing power performance in various ways by increasing the voltage will compensate for the power in the power system to be more stable. There are many ways, but for the substation increases the voltages by using a capacitor bank [11]. It is connected to the system to increase the voltage level. For the MEA’s power transmission system is using the bus voltage system by connecting the capacitor bank. When there is a lot of loading in the system, the voltage will decrease. Therefore, using a capacitor bank will increase the voltage more highly. However, if the load is less, the discharge capacitor will be released, and causing the bus voltage in the substation decreasing. The switching for increasing the voltage level by connecting/disconnecting (on/off) of the capacitor bank into the system, it often causing switching surge such as Back to Back Switching [12] will cause an inrush current which may damage the prevention system and capacitors deteriorate. From these problems, it leads to create the instructional media of the switching capacitor banks by analyzing the problem in the substation. This can display a variety of waveforms, such as frequency, voltage, and current etc. which is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Instructional media from ATP-EMTP program: switching capacitor banks

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(3) The creating the video clips for studying electrical equipment in substation including the video of transformer, switchgear and capacitor etc., as shown in Fig. 5, which are provided for understanding the electrical equipment inside the substation by self-learning.

Fig. 5. Video for studying electrical equipment in the substation

(4) The creating a channel of information sources to search and contact the instructor by using Facebook website to contact and publish video and information during the course. For inquiries can be used from the Line program as shown in Fig. 6 which more convenience and understanding in problem-based learning.

Fig. 6. Communication channels of the learning process

4 Applying Instructional Package to the Sample Group This research created a research tool based on problem-based learning for power systems transients in case study of MEA consist of teacher manuals, lesson plans, activities, instructional media, and tests etc. then use the developed research tools to experiment with the sample group, 30 senior students of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Education King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. In order to collect teaching and learning information and the achievement of teaching and learning of the developed instructional package shown in Fig. 7.

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1st Defining the situation

3rd Analyzing problems

2nd Identify problems

4th Solving problems

5th Knowledge exchange Fig. 7. Experiment with sample group

5 Research Results 5.1

Evaluation of the Research Tools’ Quality

The appropriate assessment to find the quality of research tools, the instructional package of problem-based learning in power system transients in case study of MEA, will be examined by 5 experts, according to Fig. 8, using a questionnaire with a 5 levels valuation, by using the suitability assessment in many ways, including lesson

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plans, content learning, instructional media and evaluation. The result of evaluation the instructional package of problem-based learning in power system transients in case study of MEA by 5 experts’ opinion were found to be appropriate at a high level. (The average value is 4.34).

Fig. 8. Quality assessments by experts

5.2

The Developed Instructional Package

The organizing of teaching and learning activities together with instructional media which developed from occurred problems in power system transients in case study of MEA’s power system conjunction with the ATP-EMTP transient program. The development of the instructional package for this research will consist of teacher manuals, lesson plans, assignments, instructional media and test as shown in Fig. 9, which can be used for teaching and learning in the power system analysis course, Graduate Industrial Education Curriculum, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok. The researcher has determined the lesson 4 units as follows:-

Fig. 9. Teacher manual of problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA

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Unit Unit Unit Unit

1: 2: 3: 4:

Basic Power System Power System Model Simulation Program Case Study of Power System Transients

The developed instructional package in this research will focus on creating instructional package which media consisting of videos, PowerPoint, and ATP-EMTP program which is a power system analysis program that is popularly used and is continuously developed. There are models of power system’s components, protection system, electromechanical and others which have the ability to analyze power system and analysis of transients by the instructional package of problem-based learning use the ATP-EMTP program as the media. The creating a power system model with the ATP-EMTP program in case study of MEA’s power system, there are 2 cases: (1) the impact of power interference on the frequency in the substation (2) the impact of the inrush current from medium voltage of switching capacitor bank. 5.3

The Result of Instructional Package’ Efficiency Test

The creating and finding the effectiveness of the instructional package according to the problem-based learning model for power system transients in case study of MEA consists of teacher manuals, instructional package and tests that are applied to a sample of 30 students in learning the power system transients. From doing the test before and after learning all 4 units by comparing the scores according to the standard criteria of Megugans, the results of the analysis are shown as detailed in Table 2. Table 2. The score analysis before and after the learning of the sample group Testing Total scores Highest scores Lowest scores Average scores Megugans Pre-test 60 37 12 19.90 1.09 Post-test 60 54 32 46.16

From Table 2, the sample group of 30 students who studying the instructional package consisting of real media, simulation program and other teaching materials based on problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA, a score of test 19.90% before learning, which had the highest score is 37 points and the lowest score is 11 points. The post-test score had the highest score was 54 points and the lowest score is 32 points and the average score is 46.16% of the full score 60 points. Therefore, it can be concluded that the instructional package, which consist of media and activities of problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA, has been developed to be effective according to the Meguians’s standard criteria 1.09. 5.4

Results of Comparison the Learning Progress

The learning results of problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA which the learning progress test will be conducted and started by allowing 30 students to do a test before learning after that teaching and learning

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according to the plan of teaching activities until all units are complete. Then, let the students do the test 60 scores and collect the data and take the scores to analyze the learning progress by using statistical values of the t-test. The analysis results as shown in Table 3. Table 3. Comparison of learning progress (30 students) Sig. (1 tailed) Testing Average Percentage Standard deviation df tcal Pre-test 19.90 29.26 5.48 29 18.27 0.0000** Post-test 46.16 76.54 6.14 **statistical significance at the level of .05

From Table 3, the test shows the comparison before and after learning of 30 students. It was found that the pre-test and post-test scores were 19.90 and 46.16 points, respectively which assumed that:The t-test results of the progress analysis of the students found that the post-test scores of the students were higher than before pre-test at the statistical significance level of .05. 5.5

Results of the Analyzing Students’ Satisfaction

The assessment of students’ satisfaction through teaching with problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA by applying to sample groups of 30 senior students, undergraduate students in electrical engineering, Faculty of Industrial Education King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, who enrolled in the course of Electrical System Analysis in the second semester of academic year 2018 and using the satisfaction questionnaire which is a 5-level evaluation including teaching and learning styles, PowerPoint presentation, media, simulation programs and the real situation, and the test of learning achievement. The result of the students’ satisfaction on problem-based for power system transients in case study of MEA found that the satisfied is a high level and the average is 4.36 (Table 4). Table 4. Results of the analyzing students’ satisfaction Evaluated topics

X 1. Process of teaching and learning 4.28 2. Content 4.46 3. Instructional media 4.33 4. Simulation program 4.45 5. Evaluation 4.29 Total 4.25

S.D. Interpret 0.57 0.42 0.51 0.42 0.42 0.41

High High High High High High

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6 Conclusion This research has developed instructional package of a problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA including teacher manuals which consist of activity plans, content paper, activities, tests, manuals of ATP-EMTP programs and instructional media. The results of the research are as follows:– The results of quality assessment of instructional package of a problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA by 5 experts’ opinion found that the appropriate is a high level. The average is 4.34. – The results of the performance testing of instructional package of a problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA found that the developed instructional package were effective according to Meguians’s standard criteria. The value is 1.09 which is higher than 1.00, the lowest of the standard criteria. – The results of students’ satisfaction on problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA found that the satisfaction is high level (and the average is 4.36. Therefore, the developed instructional package of problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA presented in this research is a presentation of real problems in the power system in order to teach the students understand the power system. In conclusion, this research develop instructional package of problem-based learning for power system transients in case study of MEA and focus on the students’ learning development for a sustainable industry. In order to support the solving problems such as the effect of electrical interference on the frequency in the substation, the impact of the inrush current from the switching of a capacitor bank, etc. which are real problems in power system. Therefore, the learning process uses such problems as stimuli in studying as a result of students will have a good knowledge in applying for electrical engineering practice effectively. In addition, the developed instructional package can be used as a guide for education and supports the industrial revolution 4.0, which requires the development of qualified people to be an important force in the development of modern industries.

References 1. Haginomori, E., et al.: Power System Transient Analysis: Theory and Practice Using Simulation Programs (ATP-EMTP). Wiley, Pondicherry (2016) 2. Barrows, H.S., Tamblyn, R.H.: Problem-Based Learning: An Approach to Medical Education. Springer, Heidelberg (1980) 3. Barrows, H.S.: Problem-Based Learning Applied to Medical Education. Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield (2000) 4. Savin-Baden, M.: Problem-Based Learning in Higher Education: Untold Stories. Open University Press, Buckingham (2000)

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5. Luksanasakul, A., Koseeyaporn, P., Wangsatitwong, M.: The development of researching model for instructional development in engineering education. In: The National Conference on Technical Education TechEd- 3rd, Bangkok (2010) 6. Siriwithtayathanakun, P.: Impact of electrical disturbance on MEA’s system frequency: a case study. In: International Conference on CEPSI, Korea (2014) 7. Thanapong, S., Sarawut, W., Cattareeya, S.: Multi-step back-to-back capacitor bank switching in a 115 kV substation. In: The ECTI International Conference on Electrical Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and information Technology, Chiang Mai (2010) 8. Sripan, R., Suksawat, B.: Propose of fuzzy logic-based students’ learning assessment. In: International Conference on ICCAS, South Korea (2010) 9. Ravindra, P.: Singh, Digital Power System Protection. Prentic-Hall, India (2007) 10. Durbak, D.W., et al.: Modeling guidelines for switching transients. In: Modeling and Analysis of System Transients Using Digital Programs. IEEE Power Engineering Society (1998) 11. IEEE Guide for the Protection of Shunt Capacitor Banks. IEEE Std C37.99-2000 (2013) 12. Pramana, P.A., et al.: Inrush current investigation of capacitor bank switching for 150 kV electrical system in Indonesia. In: International Conference on High Voltage Engineering and Power Systems (ICHVEPS), Indonesia (2017)

A Study on Pupils’ Motivation to Pursue a STEM Career Georg Jäggle1, Munir Merdan2(&), Gottfried Koppensteiner2,3, Wilfried Lepuschitz2, Alexandra Posekany3, and Markus Vincze1 1

ACIN Institute of Automation and Control, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria {jaeggle,vincze}@acin.tuwien.ac.at 2 PRIA Practical Robotics Institute, Vienna, Austria {merdan,koppensteiner,lepuschitz}@pria.at 3 TGM, Vienna Institute of Technology, Vienna, Austria {gkoppensteiner,aposekany}@tgm.ac.at

Abstract. The industry is facing with the increasing lack of STEM graduates every year. It is of vital importance to motivate pupils for technical schools or schools in the STEM fields. This paper analyzes data from 693 pupils about their interest in a STEM career as well as their attitude towards STEM in general. Within this study, we also analyze the influence of the participation in robotics workshops. The method is a quantitative survey with questionnaires. Results show what mostly influenced the pupils to pursue a STEM career as well as the influence of robotics on them. Finally, the paper presents three STEM-related projects, which we also analyzed in regard to their impact on the pupils. Keywords: STEM careers
Out-of-school-activities Technical high school
Interest in STEM


Educational robotics


1 Introduction Most EU countries are facing a low number of students interested in the STEM career [1]. Although, some economic projections forecast that demand for STEM-skilled labour is expected to rise and there will be around 7 million job openings until 2025 in the European Union [2]. Austria, like many other EU countries, lacks students interested in pursuing degrees in STEM fields [3, 4]. Already today, eight out of ten industrial companies in Austria have problems to find qualified personnel in the fields of engineering, production, research and development [5]. Based on the calculation of the Federation of Austrian Industries, there is a shortage of around 1000 graduates in the STEM fields every year, which results in about every 6th job position unfilled [6]. Besides the increasing demand, an insufficient supply of graduates of vocational-technical schools is regarded as one of the reasons for skills shortages [7]. Considering the fact of several research studies pointing out that high school and early school grades are critical times for motivating young people to pursue STEM careers [8, 9], it is of vital importance to focus on their motivation at this stage. These facts are further underlined with findings, which show that the pupil’s career interests when entering high school is the strongest predictor of their © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 696–706, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_66

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career interest when leaving high school [10]. Research findings also report that pupils in middle school have limited knowledge about STEM careers, related to the subject requirements as well as kind of activities these careers integrate [11]. Further studies also indicate that school science practices are constrained to memorizing and replicating science content, and there is a need to redesign and reshape science learning with the purpose of improving STEM learning [12]. To improve perceptions about STEM, more awareness and direct contact opportunities are needed to ensure pupils have enough knowledge to make informed career choices [13]. It is of vital importance to investigate key factors such as family influences, teachers and school curricula, or out-of-school activities that can motivate young people to target STEM careers [14]. In this context, Guzey et al. developed the STEM career interest survey for measuring STEM career interest, and Kier et al. focused additionally on the evaluation of the effects of STEM programs on changes in the interest in STEM subjects and careers [15, 16]. Several literature studies identified and addressed different factors to be influential for motivating pupils towards STEM, such as parents, teachers, and practical activities (laboratory, hands-on, experiments), out-of-schools activities (e.g. open days, lectures at a university, workshops, summer camps), as well as role models and mentoring programs [17–21]. Studies show that on the one hand, parental involvement could be an influencing factor in their children’s career path [22], but also role models, such as teachers, can significantly influence students in pursuing STEM careers [23]. On the other hand, students tend to be more motivated if they participated in STEM-related out-of-school activities such as after-school events, field trips, summer camps, competitions or mentoring programs [24]. Moreover, research has also identified positive relationships between math club participation and STEM major selection [25]. Besides, the results of several studies point out that self-efficacy along with knowledge of STEM careers are essential factors in whether or not young people are going to pursue a STEM career [11]. Considering that there has been only limited research regarding the influence of robotics, the focus of this paper will be to investigate how the participation at robotics programs as well as robotics attitude in general correlate to the interest in STEM and the motivation for pursuing a STEM career. Moreover, the influence of out-of-school activities will also be investigated. Finally, the study will present as good practices the results of three STEM-related projects to increase the interest in a STEM career. The paper is structured as follows: The following section briefly introduces the method of the study. Section 3 gives an analyses of a few key factors for pursuing STEM careers. Section 4 presents evaluation results from three STEM-related projects. Finally, a conclusion is given in Sect. 5.

2 Method The online survey consisted of 50 questions grouped in four categories of variables: (A) pupil demographics, (B) family context, (C) participation in STEM-related activities outside school, and (D) pupils’ science and learning preferences. The approach was focused on understanding different factors that have an influence on the decision to attend a technical high school. In this context, we analyzed the impact of some out-of-school

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activities on the attitude towards a STEM career. Our main focus was to investigate if possible contact with educational robotics had some influence on the later career pipeline. In order to get a broader overview of students preferences, we also examined their attitude towards engineering and science within the frame of three different projects. Each of this factor was encompassed with a different set of questions. Considering an inscription to a technical high school as one of the first steps in a STEM career, we formulated several questions that cover the reasons to make such a choice. The questions should evaluate the influence of the family, peer group and robotic workshops. Furthermore, we asked about the influence of some other STEM-related school activities such as Open Days, School Visit Programs or Career Days, which support the young people with relevant information about STEM careers and STEM activities. In order to evaluate the learning style favoured by the pupils when attending a technical high school, we investigated their preferred learning and teaching methods. The final set of questions was dedicated to review the pupils’ intentions related to their future career. This part of the survey was done with 249 pupils from three technical high schools in Vienna, Austria, carried out in the frame of the project iBridge (see also Sect. 4.2). In order to analyze the attitude towards engineering and science by young people in general, we performed an online survey within the frame of the European Researchers’ Night (see Sect. 4.1) with 271 technical high school pupils. Besides, 173 pupils filled out questionnaires in the frame of the STEM-related project Makers@School (see Sect. 4.3). Overall, answers of 693 students were analyzed regarding the likelihood to pursue a STEM career.

3 The Key Factors for Pursuing a STEM Career This part of the study contains the results from analyzing the answers from 249 pupils of the three technical high schools. The age group range is from 14 to 22 years. Almost 27,4% of these pupils had migration backgrounds speaking a total of 30 different native languages. As can be seen in Fig. 1, most of the pupils attended an Academic Secondary School Lower Cycle (AHS: 58%) or a New Secondary School (NMS: 34%) before attending the technical high school.

Fig. 1. The school attended before the technical high school [%]

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Regarding the reason for pursuing a STEM Career, we analyzed the following statements: “I get support from my parents to register to the school”, “I must persuade my parents to register to the school”, “My choice for the technical high school was because of my friends”, and “My choice for the technical high school was due to a robotic workshop”. The pupils answered to the statements with a 5-Likert-scale with 1 representing “strongly agree” and 5 representing “strongly disagree”. A significant result of the test group is that the students were supported by their parents (mean = 1,74; SD = 1,245) and did not have to persuade their parents to choose a technical high school (mean = 4,33; SD = 1,281). The other significant result is that the students did not choose their STEM career because of their friends (mean = 4,02; SD = 1,425). Nevertheless, the analysis shows that 21 (8,5%) of the pupils said that they chose a technical high school because of the participation in a robotic workshop by selecting “strongly agree” or “agree” as answer to the statement “My choice for the technical high school was a robotic workshops”. Our next step was to compare the results between a group A, which chose the STEM career because of a robotic workshop, and a group B, which did not chose the STEM career because of a robotic workshop. The results are seen in Table 1. Table 1. Comparison between group A and B Groups Statements I get support from my parents I must persuade my parents

Group Mean 2,57 2,62

A SD 1,748 1,884

Group Mean 1,65 4,57

B SD 1,158 0,992

The comparison of the two tables shows that group A had to persuade their parents more than group B. Respectively, group B got more support from their parents than group A. It seems that the participants of a robotic workshop confronted their parents to get a chance for pursuing a STEM career. This result is very significant and has to be analyzed with a larger example. But already these results with small numbers show that robotic workshops can influence pupils and encourage them to pursue a STEM career, although this is sometimes not in the main focus of their parents. The impact of STEM-related school activities were analyzed through multiplechoice-questions. Twenty pupils (24%) visited the high schools in the frame of a School Visit Program, where classes from lower grade schools get a tour to a high school for obtaining information about its offers. However, it is significant that 82 pupils (42,1%) visited the school as a guest before they officially registered to this school. From this number, 72 pupils visited the school during an Open Day activity, during which the young people have the opportunity to visit the school privately with parents or friends. On such an Open Day, the guests are guided through the school and can visit the laboratories, classrooms and workshop rooms as well as get information about study topics and curricula. We also analyzed the pupils’ learning habits and preferences. As presented in Fig. 2, most of the high school pupils like to do research and showed interest to

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understand technical things. However, it is interesting that 53% of them “strongly agree” or “agree” to learn rather alone than learn with others, Moreover, 58% “strongly agree” and 25% “agree” to choose how to learn on their own.

Fig. 2. Learning habits and preferences of the pupils

4 Best Practice Examples Within this section, evaluation results are shown how the participation in three different STEM-related projects influence the pupils’ motivation to pursue a STEM career. 4.1

European Researchers Night

The European Researchers’ Night1 is a mega-event that takes place every year at the same time in many European cities. The main aim of the event is to give every citizen the opportunity to actively participate in science. The focus of the event held in Vienna was to motivate and inspire youth to enhance youth’s understanding of science and research and encourage them to pursue a career in the STEM fields by connecting them with outstanding scientists and innovations. Within the frame of the online survey, we interviewed 271 pupils of the technical high school TGM in Vienna about their career interests and the impressions about the event. Prior to the their participation, 22,9% were not interested, 59% had some interest and 18,1% had a lot of interest in having a career or job in a scientific field. After having participated at the event over 25,8% of

1

https://sci4all.eu/.

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the pupils responded that their interest in studying science and becoming scientists increased. However, further 70,1% stated that their interest stayed the same and 4,1% even said that interest in the STEM career declined.

Fig. 3. Opinion about science [%]

Besides, 62,4% reported to know more about the work of the scientists than before. Further 19,6% improved their opinion about scientists, while 62,4% already had a clear picture. In Fig. 3, we summarized their interest and opinion about science in general, where 76% agree with having more science lessons in schools and 78% pupils think that science is interesting. However, only 26% are interested on a career that involves science. It is also interesting that 80% pupils agree that research helps in everyday life. Regarding their interest in participating in future similar events, 42,8% responded that they are very interested and further 48% are somewhat interested. Asked about their future career more than 35% stated that they are going to search a job after they finish the school, additional to another 33% that still do not know what they are going to do later. 32% of respondents clearly specified that they intend to study after the school. 35% of those that are going to study will probably study STEM, 20% are going to study law, languages, economy or psychology and further 45% are still undetermined with what they are going to study. 4.2

Project iBridge

Robotics in education has emerged as a superb tool to learn about STEM enabling pupils to use their individual interests, perspectives and skills to work on interdisciplinary projects [26, 27]. The combination of project-based learning and educational robotics to solve real world challenges can have an impact on the development of pupils’ interest in STEM but also on their communication and collaboration skills [28].

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In the project iBridge2, we combine project-based learning with the application of robotics focusing to improve student skills and their interest in STEM by engaging the students in solving real-world challenges. On the one hand, the project intends to get young people involved in the field of assistive technologies for senior citizens. On the other hand, the students are also concerned with the development of robots for children. In both cases the students have to face the issues that concrete user groups (adults or children respectively) have with technology usage and address their needs, considering their abilities and desires.

Fig. 4. Impact of robotic on pupils [%]

In this context, the pupils have to reflect what functionality a robot or assistive technology has to offer and how it should look like, behave and interact in order to be well accepted by the users. Considering that the challenges are broad enough and offer many different ways to respond to, the pupils have a chance to practice their creativity to develop a possible solution [28, 29]. Within the current stage of the project, the pupils developed different assistive technologies, e.g. “Yeet Bot”, which is a training robot kit for children. Further technologies were developed for elderly people to provide technical support, such as an “unconscious recognition” system, an emergency bracelet, a sensitive cuddly toy denoted as “Paul”, and an intelligent medicine box. Within the frame of this project, we asked 249 pupils about their position towards robotics. As presented in Fig. 4, the pupils answered quite positively, stating that they would like to have more contact with it and that they are open to robotics issues in general. They also showed an understanding for the importance of robotics and advantages that it can make in real life, including also the help for elderly people.

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https://www.sparklingscience.at/en/projects/show.html?–typo3_neos_nodetypes-page[id]=1263.

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Robotic workshops for pupils can increase their interest in STEM from an early age. The Makers@School3 project aims to communicate a better understanding of the maker-movement and to increase the interest in STEM topics. The project involves a series of workshops for primary and middle school classes as important period in education to introduce pupils in STEM fields. These workshops involve topics such as product development, 3D-printing and robotics. The hands-on activities of the workshops shall encourage the pupils to actively use the provided technologies and to choose a STEM Career. Results of the questionnaire with 173 pupils and administered at the end of the workshops are shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Impact of robotic on pupils [%]

The number of pupils who liked math increased to 89%, and the proportion who liked science to 77%, showing an increase in interest following the workshops. Nearly all pupils had a positive view of the engineering field after the workshops, and the proportion of pupils who liked to use computers had increased markedly from before the workshops to 87%. Almost half of the pupils were now more interested in studying science, and 87% would like to participate again in such activities like the carried out workshops. It can be concluded that the positive experience of workshops can indeed foster a positive attitude towards STEM, which is one of the main aims of the project Makers@School [30].

3

https://pria.at/education/makersschool/.

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5 Conclusion This study investigated several key factors that can motivate pupils to target STEM careers. Besides, their attitude towards STEM was also analysed within this study. Current results show that the impact of parents in choosing the STEM career is much higher than expected and that possible measures in the future should also be oriented to inform the parents about opportunities of STEM careers for their children. Moreover, the students show a preference for having more robotics and science-related topics in regular curricula. In this context, some results show that robotic activities can also influence students to pursue a STEM career. Finally, results from three STEM-related projects indicate that they can increase STEM interest to some extent. Future work will focus on deeper analysis of the results involving larger number of students. Acknowledgement. The authors acknowledge the financial support by the “Sparkling Science” program, an initiative of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, under grant agreement no. SPA 06/294, as well as from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology in the frame of the “Talente regional” program under grant agreement no. FFG 860104.

References 1. Kearney, C.: Efforts to increase students’ interest in pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics studies and careers. National Measures taken by 30 Countries – 2015 Report, European Schoolnet, Brussels, 96 p. (2016) 2. Caprile, M., Palmén, R., Sanz, P., Dente, G.: Encouraging STEM studies. Labour Market Situation and Comparison of Practices Targeted at Young People in Different Member States. European Parliament, EP (2015). http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ STUD/2015/542199/IPOL_STU(2015)542199_EN.pdf. Accessed 18 Feb 2019 3. Andreitz, I., Müller, F.H., Kramer, D., Krainer, K.: Wer studiert Technik? Eine Befragung österreichischer SchülerInnen und Studierender. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge aus dem Institut für Unterrichts- und Schulentwicklung Nr. 7, Klagenfurt (2013) 4. Joyce, A.: Stimulating interest in STEM careers among students in Europe: supporting career choice and giving a more realistic view of STEM at work. In: 3rd Education and Employers Taskforce Research Conference, London (2014) 5. Industriellenvereinigung: ZAHLEN, DATEN & FAKTEN Arbeitsmarkt und Karrierechancen in Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften und Technik (2013) 6. Hauer, M.: Herausforderung MINT – Daten & Fakten, Academia Superior (2016). https:// www.academia-superior.at/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Dossier-Herausforderung-MINT_ Daten-Fakten_2016.pdf. Accessed 5 Apr 2019 7. https://skillspanorama.cedefop.europa.eu/en/analytical_highlights/austria-mismatch-priorityoccupations#_edn2. Accessed 14 Mar 2019 8. Sahin, A., Ekmekci, A., Waxman, H.C.: The relationships among high school STEM learning experiences, expectations, and mathematics and science efficacy and the likelihood of majoring in STEM in college. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 39(11), 1549–1572 (2017) 9. Wang, X.: Why students choose STEM majors: motivation, high school learning, and postsecondary context of support. Am. Educ. Res. J. 50(5), 1081–1121 (2013)

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10. Sadler, P.M., Sonnert, G., Hazari, Z., Tai, R.: Stability and volatility of STEM career interest in high school: a gender study. Sci. Educ. 96(3), 411–427 (2012) 11. Blotnicky, K.A., Franz-Odendaal, T., French, F., Joy, P.: A study of the correlation between STEM career knowledge, mathematics self-efficacy, career interests, and career activities on the likelihood of pursuing a STEM career among middle school students. Int. J. STEM Educ. 5(1), 22 (2018) 12. Ayar, M.C., Yalvac, B.: Lessons learned: authenticity, interdisciplinarity, and mentoring for STEM learning environments. Int. J. Educ. Math. Sci. Technol. 4(1), 30–43 (2016) 13. Compeau, S.: The calling of an engineer: high school students’ perceptions of engineering. Master thesis, Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2015 (2016) 14. Christensen, R., Knezek, G., Tyler-Wood, T.: Alignment of hands-on STEM engagement activities with positive STEM dispositions in secondary school students. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. 24(6), 898–909 (2015) 15. Guzey, S.S., Harwell, M., Moore, T.: Development of an instrument to assess attitudes toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Sch. Sci. Math. 114, 271–279 (2014) 16. Kier, M.W., Blanchard, M.R., Osborne, J.W., Albert, J.L.: The development of the STEM career interest survey (STEM-CIS). Res. Sci. Educ. 44(3), 461–481 (2014) 17. Brzozowy, M., Hołownicka, K., Bzdak, J., Tornese, P., Lupiañez-Villanueva, F.: Making STEM education attractive for young people by presenting key scientific challenges and their impact on our life and career perspectives. In: 11th Annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference (2017) 18. Baran, E., Canbazoglu Bilici, S., Mesutoglu, C., Ocak, C.: Moving STEM beyond schools: students’ perceptions about an out-of-school STEM education program. Int. J. Educ. Math. Sci. Technol. 4(1), 9–19 (2016) 19. Nugent, G., Barker, B., Welch, G., Grandgenett, N., Wu, C., Nelson, C.: A model of factors contributing to STEM learning and career orientation. Int. J. Sci. Educ. (2015). https://doi. org/10.1080/09500693.2015.1017863 20. Shin, J.E.L., Levy, S.R., London, B.: Effects of role model exposure on STEM and nonSTEM student engagement. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 46, 410–427 (2016) 21. Sithole, A., Chiyaka, E.T., McCarthy, P., Mupinga, D.M., Bucklein, B.K., Kibirige, J.: Student attraction, persistence and retention in STEM programs: successes and continuing challenges. High. Educ. Stud. 7(1), 46–59 (2017) 22. Brasier, T.G.: The effects of parental involvement on students’ eighth and tenth grade college aspirations: a comparative analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC (2008) 23. IET: Studying STEM: What are the Barriers? A Literature Review of the Choices Students make. The Institution of Engineering and Technology, Stevenage (2008) 24. Young, J.R., Ortiz, N., Young, J.L.: STEMulating interest: a meta-analysis of the effects of out-of-school time on student STEM interest. Int. J. Educ. Math. Sci. Technol. 5(1), 62–74 (2017) 25. Gottfried, M.A., Williams, D.: STEM club participation and STEM schooling outcomes. Educ. Policy Anal. Arch. 21(79), 1–27 (2013) 26. Yuen, T.T., Boecking, M., Stone, J., Tiger, E.P., Gomez, A., Guillen, A., et al.: Group tasks, activities, dynamics, and interactions in collaborative robotics projects with elementary and middle school children. J. STEM Educ. Innov. Res. 15(1), 39–45 (2014) 27. Lepuschitz, W., Koppensteiner, G., Merdan, M.: Offering multiple entry-points into STEM for young people. In: Robotics in Education - Research and Practices for Robotics in STEM Education. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Springer (2016)

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28. Jäggle, G., Merdan, M., Koppensteiner, G., Brein, C., Wallisch, B., Marakovits, P., Brunn, M., Lepuschitz, W., Vincze, M.: Project-based learning focused on cross-generational challenges. In: Robotics in Education. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Springer (2019) 29. Jäggle, G., Vincze, M., Weiss, A., Koppensteiner, G., Lepuschitz, W., Merdan, M.: iBridge participative cross-generational approach with educational robotics. In: “Robotics in Education” Volume 457 of the Series Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, pp. 263–274 (2018a) 30. Jäggle, G., Lepuschitz, W., Girvan, C., Schuster, L., Ayatollahi, I., Vincze, M.: Overview and evaluation of a workshop series for fostering the interest in entrepreneurship and STEM. In: 2018 IEEE 10th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, pp. 89–94 (2018b)

The Impact of Alternative Assessments in Assessing the Seventh Component of the Washington Accord’s Knowledge Profile Peck Loo Kiew1, Chia Pao Liew2,3(&), Marlia Puteh4, and Kim Geok Tan5 1

UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [email protected] 2 Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [email protected] 3 Engineering Accreditation Department, Board of Engineers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 4 Centre for Engineering Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia [email protected] 5 Multimedia University, Malacca, Malaysia [email protected]

Abstract. Engineering is an essential activity in meeting the needs of the people, enhancing the economic development as well as providing services to the society. Engineering practices safeguard people’s health, safety, the environment and manage risks throughout the entire lifecycle of a system. Such knowledge is categorised as the seventh curriculum component of the Washington Accord (WA)’s Knowledge Profile. In Malaysia, this component of knowledge profile is commonly assessed via traditional assessments such as written assignments or end-of-semester examination. Such assessments, however, do not promote the holistic outcomes as well as the students’ learning process. This paper presents the application of alternative assessments in assessing the mentioned curriculum component among the engineering students in Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Malaysia. The effectiveness and acceptance of alternative assessments by focusing on authentic and flipped assessment methods were investigated. The qualitative analysis conducted on 208 engineering students revealed positive experience towards the implementation of alternative assessments, acknowledging that these assessment approaches promote cooperative learning and reinforce their understanding of the course materials in an active manner. Similarly, the quantitative analysis supported the effectiveness of alternative assessments with improvement of 6.6 to 7.8% in all course outcomes. Keywords: Authentic assessment
Flipped assessment assessment
Knowledge profile
Washington Accord

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 707–718, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_67


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1 Introduction Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning processes whereby the learning of students is judged and evaluated by the academic staff [1]. Assessments of what students learn in universities are typically used for either improvement or accountability purposes [2]. In the former, academic staff gather evidences about how well students attain the intended course learning outcomes and graduate attributes, and subsequently utilising this information to improve students’ performance by modifying pedagogical approaches as well as course contents. With these, assessment for improvement is essentially an internal matter. In contrast, assessment data collected for the purpose of accountability are used primarily to demonstrate that the institution is using its resources appropriately to help students in developing the knowledge, skills and competencies required to function effectively in their future career. The information is typically intended for external stakeholders comprised of state and regional accrediting bodies, governmental agencies and public [3]. The advancement of engineering education is reported to be dependent on assessment; and the form of assessment has been regarded as one of the significant elements in defining students’ approach to learning [4]. The engineering profession requires students to be capable in coping with the realities of industrial practices in this evolving world and aware of the legal consequences of every professional decision they made. Nevertheless, Mills and Treagust [5] highlighted that the predominant model of engineering education today remains unchanged with “chalk and talk” approach with lecture-based delivery and paper-pencil assessment at the end of pre-specified periods. Over the past decades, there has been considerable debate over the effectiveness of assessment implemented in engineering education as there is often a gap between what is required of students in assessment tasks and what occurs in the real world [4, 6]. The advancement of technology advocated by the 4th Industrial Revolution has necessitated a modification on students’ learning assessment. In line with the shift to embrace the disruptive technology in education, there is an immediate need to evaluate students’ learning and identify the extent to which learning assessments have developed their self-regulated learning and critical thinking skills [7]. While some believe traditional assessment methods are more effective, many argue that alternative assessments are superior [7, 8]. There has been a gradual shift from traditional assessments toward alternative assessments observed in engineering education today. Traditional assessment promotes memorisation and understanding of core contents, and are often associated with failure in assessing deeper forms of learning. Its implementation is therefore challenged by the alternative assessment approaches. On the other hand, alternative assessment promotes the involvement of students as active and informed participants in the teaching and learning processes. It supports students’ deliberation of content knowledge through various modes of assessment. These forms of assessment include portfolios, debates, case studies, problem-based and projectbased assignments [7]. Students use their self-study time to work in groups inside or outside the classroom, tackling more complex applications of the course contents. Maarek and Kay [9] explained that this approach cultivates cooperative learning and reinforces students’ understanding of course materials and contents.

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In recent years, accountability pressures on higher education institutions have been driven by the government, accreditation agencies, public as well as students and parents to demonstrate the effectiveness and quality of the engineering programmes offered. The effectiveness of the programmes, however, relies on how well the academic staff realise the role of assessment in student learning and their readiness to modify teaching strategy in a way that assessment is adopted as a tool to improve student learning [4]. Conventionally, assessment has primarily been a means of certification and accountability but a much wider range of purposes of assessment is now advocated. In this context, the Ministry of Education Malaysia had introduced the Future Ready Curriculum assessment and outlined eight alternative assessment methods to produce dynamic, balanced and holistic graduates, namely authentic, performance-based, personalised (e.g. flipped), integrated, contemporary, real-time, challenged-based and profiling assessments [10]. Evaluation of students’ higher-order thinking skills, problem solving, attitudes, and other abilities which cannot be quantified by traditional assessment is deemed crucial for 21st century teaching and learning activities. The seventh curriculum component of the Washington Accord’s Knowledge Profile i.e. the Comprehension of the Role of Engineering in Society and Identification of Issues in Engineering Practice requires the engineering graduates to demonstrate an understanding of the adverse consequences of engineering activities. In the past, students’ outcomes on the following two (out of twelve) Washington Accord’s Graduate Attributes [11] were assessed using traditional assessments such as written assignments and end-of-semester examination in Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TARUC), Malaysia. 1. The Engineer and Society - Apply reasoning informed by contextual knowledge to assess societal, health, safety, legal and cultural issues and the consequent responsibilities relevant to professional engineering practice and solutions to complex engineering problems. 2. Ethics - Apply ethical principles and commit to professional ethics and responsibilities and norms of engineering practice. To illustrate, the students were required to evaluate the impact of engineering solutions to the society in written reports, for example, writing critic report on ethical case studies or industrial safety and accidents. Hence, the present study aimed to employ a new approach in assessing the students. This is done by adopting authentic and flipped assessment methods, (1) the use of debates in stimulating the engineering practice environment to deliberate over contemporary engineering issues, (2) role-play of applying ethical principles, as well as (3) the design of examination questions on industrial safety and accidents with marking scheme were attempted. These direct assessments along with a survey (indirect assessment) were applied to assess the attainments of students’ outcomes in a core course entitled Engineer and Society. In addition to the comparison of course outcome attainments with the previous semester in which traditional assessments were imposed, the authors explored the students’ perception towards these alternative assessments at the end of the semester.

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2 Conceptual Framework The Washington Accord (WA) is an agreement between the accreditation bodies responsible for accreditation or recognition of professional engineering undergraduate degree programmes in its signatory countries. The list of graduate attributes was agreed by all signatory countries within the WA for benchmarking of standards for engineering education and are the exemplars of outcomes expected of graduate from an accredited programme of a signatory country [11]. The same set of graduate attributes is adopted by Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) since 2012 for the accreditation of engineering programmes in Malaysia. Eight of the twelve EAC’s graduate attributes listed in Table 1 address the knowledge profile known as WK1, WK2, WK3, WK4, WK5, WK6, WK7 and WK8. The letter, “W” refers to Washington Accord while the letter, “K” refers to Knowledge Profile. The knowledge profile is the broad characteristics of the different components (WK1 to WK8) of the knowledge embodied in an engineering degree programme.

Table 1. Knowledge profile (modified from International Engineering Alliance [12]) No.

Component

Description

WK1

Natural sciences

WK2

Mathematics

WK3

Engineering fundamentals

WK4

Engineering specialist knowledge

WK5

Engineering design Engineering practice (technology)

A systematic, theory-based understanding of the natural sciences applicable to the discipline Conceptually-based mathematics, numerical analysis, statistics and formal aspects of computer and information science to support analysis and modelling applicable to the discipline A systematic, theory-based formulation of engineering fundamentals required in the engineering discipline Engineering specialist knowledge that provides theoretical frameworks and bodies of knowledge for the accepted practice areas in the engineering discipline; much is at the forefront of the discipline Knowledge that supports engineering design in a practice area Knowledge of engineering practice (technology) in the practice areas in the engineering discipline

WK6

Related graduate attributes Engineering knowledge and problem analysis

Design or development of solutions Modern tool usage

(continued)

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Table 1. (continued) No.

Component

Description

WK7

Role of engineering in society

WK8

Research literature

Comprehension of the role of engineering in society and identified issues in engineering practice in the discipline: ethics and the professional responsibility of an engineer to public safety; the impacts of engineering activity: economic, social, cultural, environmental and sustainability Engagement with selected knowledge in the research literature of the discipline

Related graduate attributes Engineer and society, environment and sustainability, and ethics

Investigation

The role of engineering in society (WK7) refers to the effective discharge of responsibilities of engineers which requires knowledge in a number of areas: ethics, public health and safety, economic costs and benefits, impacts on people and communities, respect for cultural values, protection of the environment. In addition, engineers must ensure that all engineering solutions are sustainable [12]. As highlighted earlier, in Malaysia, this component of knowledge profile is commonly assessed via traditional assessments such as written assignments or end-of-semester examination which focus on the mastery of students’ knowledge rather than what the students can or cannot do. The objective of the present study is to investigate the effectiveness and acceptance of alternative assessments by specifically focusing on the alternative assessments promoted by the Malaysia Ministry of Education [10] in assessing the knowledge as required in WK7. The research questions for this study are: RQ1: Why is there a significant improvement in students’ outcomes with alternative assessments? RQ2: What is the students’ perception on the implementation of alternative assessments in learning the Roles of Engineer in Society? In conceptualising the framework for this study, the authors adopted Bigg’s Model of Constructive Alignment [13] whereby the aligned curriculum is one of the keys to successful learning. The learning experiences shall be designed to assist student achievement of course outcomes, and carefully designed assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate achievement of those outcomes through effective learning [12]. The attainment of course outcomes involves direct assessment in the activities of teaching and learning and subsequently, the results of this assessment process are applied for continual improvement of the course. The design of conventional assessment is influenced by the behaviourist theory of learning in which the learning process is viewed as the passive absorption of a predefined body of knowledge by the learner. In today’s context, this approach is no longer sufficient, including the engineering disciplines. Learning is not just about acquiring knowledge and a specific set of skills related to the course or programme, but also involves personal change and development, which

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should facilitate the learner autonomy [14]. An emphasis on the assessment of students’ learning of competencies and higher order thinking skills such as evaluation, problem solving and critical thinking is therefore crucial. This, on the other hand, is reflected by the social constructivist theory of learning where group work and collaborative learning are promoted, and learning occurs through the construction of new ideas and concepts based on the learners’ prior knowledge or experiences [15]. The learning process involves knowledge interpretation and creation of ideas. Based on literature researches, it is noted that assessing learning can profoundly shape the educational experiences of students. Hence, the conceptual framework for this study as depicted in Fig. 1 is developed based on the alignment of assessments to learning goals that focus not only on the content knowledge, but also on the learning processes and capabilities of students.

Fig. 1. The conceptual framework for this study

3 Methodology In this study, a mixed of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used for results collection and data analysis. These were performed through both direct and indirect assessment tools. The direct assessment tool was subscribed through group assignments directly related to the course outcomes of the core course entitled Engineer and Society. Students’ attainments on three course learning outcomes (aligned to the Washington Accord’s Graduate Attributes) were analysed quantitatively based on the data from current and past semester for comparison. Meanwhile the indirect assessment was conducted via customised survey with a questionnaire comprising 10 questions on the 208 students registered in the course. This survey is to gather feedback about various aspects of the implementation of alternative assessments in the course. In addition to ratings, comment fields were included for several questions to allow for qualitative analysis.

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Participants

208 engineering students registered for the course entitled Engineer and Society in October 2018. They were third year undergraduate students from different engineering programmes (i.e., Mechanical, Mechatronics, Electrical and Materials). The alternative assessments (two authentic assessments and a flipped assessment) were administered to all students as their summative assessment. They were invited to participate in the survey at the completion of the course. An online questionnaire was designed in Survey Monkey and the survey link was published in the course online portal for students’ access and participation. Out of 208 students, 159 of them responded, showing a response rate of 76.4%. All of these respondents did not have any prior experience with alternative assessment. 3.2

Materials

This study employed a number of materials which includes direct assessment and indirect assessment tools. Direct assessment tools were inclusive of authentic assessment 1 and 2, and flipped assessment, while questionnaire was adopted as indirect assessment tool. The details of these tools are as such: Authentic Assessment 1 – Role Play. Students (3 to 4 members per group) were required to role play a case study of their own choice that was related to ethical issues. A recorded video presentation which is comprised of: introduction of the main issue in the context of global and/or national interests, as well as interests of the industry and profession; analysis of the issues within the context of the Board of Engineers, Malaysia’s regulation on professional conducts; explanation on how incompliance can affect (long term and short term) the image of the profession related to Malaysian Law; and as well as suggestion of strategies and approaches to overcome the issues shall be submitted. The research instrument used in this assessment was a customised scoring rubric reflecting the performance criteria in assessing students’ performance. Authentic Assessment 2 – Debate. The theme of this assessment was about the impact of technology to the society. Students were required to form a team of seven members. Each team (comprises two groups and one chairman) discussed one topic that was selected randomly from the 21 examples highlighted by the World Economic Forum [16] that have far-reaching impacts on human health, the environment, global commerce and international relations. These examples included artificial intelligence, connected devices, 3D printing, etc. The effects of these technological developments towards society, health and safety, legal, cultural, and/or environment were to be articulated thoroughly in the debate session that shall not exceed 30 min. One group held the affirmative role (to defend “positive” of the topic) while the other opposing role (to defend “negative” of the topic). The opening and closing statements were presented by the chairman who remained impartial and did not interrupt any speaker throughout the debate session. The research instrument used in this assessment was a comprehensive scoring rubric encompassed grading performance criteria such as understanding of topic, clarity and accuracy of information, use of facts or statistics, rebuttal, organisation of debate session, as well as presentation style.

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Flipped Assessment – Design of Examination Question. In this assessment, students were given the role as academic staff to design a final examination question with sufficiently high taxonomy to address the course learning outcome related to industrial safety and accidents. The question must be original and supplemented with complete solutions. Mark allocation of the solutions shall be included as well. The originality of questions was verified through Turnitin similarity index with the allowable threshold of 20%. A detailed marking rubric with performance criteria such as content, answer and marking scheme, originality and language or format was adopted as the research instrument. Questionnaire. An anonymous survey comprised of 10 questions was administered electronically to all students at the end of the semester to gather feedback about various aspects of the implementation of authentic assessments in this course. In addition to ratings, comment fields were included for several of the survey questions. 3.3

Data Analysis

Quantitative Analysis. The effectiveness of alternative assessment was analysed quantitatively using direct assessment tools. The attainments of course outcomes were computed based on students’ marks from the scoring rubrics of Authentic Assessment 1, Authentic Assessment 2 and flipped assessment. The attainment results were then compared with the ones obtained in the past semester (May 2017) whereby only traditional assessments (written-based) were practiced. In addition, a few rating-based questions in the questionnaire were analysed quantitatively to investigate students’ acceptance of alternative assessments in the course. Qualitative Analysis. The comment-based responses from the same questionnaire mentioned in quantitative analysis were analysed using the Miles and Huberman’s method [17]. NVivo software (Version 12) was applied to facilitate data management and analysis.

4 Results and Discussions Attainment of Course Outcomes. Three course learning outcomes in the course entitled Engineer and Society were associated with alternative assessments in October 2018 semester. The mapping of these course outcomes to graduate attributes is presented in Table 2. Table 2. The mapping of course learning outcomes to graduate attributes Course Learning Outcome (CLO) CLO 1 Apply the principles of ethics of a professional engineer in relation to society and norms of engineering practice CLO 2 Access the impact of technological development with appropriate consideration for societal, health, safety, legal, cultural and environmental factors CLO 3 Review literature for the current issues in relations to industry safety and health and ethics

Graduate attribute Ethics The Engineer and Society The Engineer and Society

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In determining the effectiveness of alternative assessments, a comparison of the mean attainment results for all course outcomes between the current semester (208 students) with May 2017 semester (43 students) was performed and tabulated in Table 3. Based on the numerical results in Table 3, a significant improvement between 6.6 and 7.8% in the course outcome attainments was evidenced in October 2018 semester with the implementation of alternative assessments as compared to traditional assessment (written reports) in May 2017. The results were in agreement with the findings by Woyessa et al. [4] that diversified approaches of assessment particularly alternative assessment with the key feature of active participation of learners are effective in developing reflective thinking and student-centered learning. This strategy allows students to explore their imagination on the assessment topics and encouraged deep discussion among peers to further understand the course. Table 3. Comparison of mean course outcome attainments CLO

May 2017 semester Type of assessment CLO 1 Written report CLO 2 Written report CLO 3 Written report

October 2018 semester Attainment (%) Type of assessment 67.4 Role play 66.7 Debate 68.9 Design of examination question

Attainment (%) 75.2 74.0 75.5

Acceptance and Perception of Alternative Assessments. The post survey results revealed students’ positive acceptance towards the implementation of alternative assessments in this course. It is worth to note that all of them did not have any prior experience with alternative assessment. From Fig. 2(a) and (b), out of 159 responses, 58% of the students suggested that alternative assessments to be implemented for this course again in the future and a significant number of them (76%) preferred alternative

Fig. 2. Post survey results

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assessments in comparison to traditional-based for other courses as well. The results indicated the positive acceptance of alternative assessments among the students in engineering curriculum. The comment-based responses from the questionnaire were analysed using the NVivo software, Version 12. The analysis of the responses revealed some common themes highlighted by the students as shown in Fig. 3. Some comments were remarkably positive, however, there were also negative experiences gathered during assessment exercises. The positive themes that worth to be mentioned are alternative assessments promoted active learning, deep thinking and team working among the students, in agreement with the reports by Iqbal and Manarvi [1], and Çaliskan and Kasikçi [18]. Furthermore, Stewart et al. [14] stated that alternative assessments offer students ample practice at leading and taking on the responsibility for effective functioning and learning of their group which is an example of scaffolding, a key learning concept in social constructivist learning theory. In this study, in order to assist students in their endeavors to complete the assignments, scoring rubrics comprise all performance criteria were published for their reference. The aim was to improve students’

Fig. 3. Positive and negative experiences with alternative assessments

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analytical thinking and communication within a group setting. The outcomes were reflected in the students’ feedback where they highlighted that such approach allowed creativity and enhanced their presentation skills. In contrary, the negative themes include the feeling of burdensome and lack of clear assessment requirements among the students (Fig. 3). The students were used to written-based assignments that only required them to demonstrate the extent of their knowledge through formulation of arguments supported with reasoning and evidences in written form which required less coordination and face-to-face discussion among team members as experienced in alternative assessments. It was also captured that the students preferred ‘short-cut’ which could be interpreted as ‘copy and paste’, a timesaving survival technique. As a result, students’ understanding of the contents may remain superficial in the traditional assessments. On the other hand, alternative assessments such as debates and role play offer the students with the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities in a variety of ways. This, however, requires reflection and thinking process that is viewed as burdensome by some of the students. Another interesting comment gathered from the students’ feedback was that assessment criteria were somewhat unclear to them. This could affect their approach to the assignments and thus create perceived heavy workload that leads to superficial learning among the students. According to Iqbal and Manarvi [1], one of the major contributors to an effective alternative assessment is the ability of the academic staff to design appropriate tasks and assist students to perform those tasks in a way to promote quality learning. Without clear assessment requirements being conveyed to the students, its implementation will pose great challenges to them.

5 Conclusion The quantitative and qualitative results in this study showed that the alternative assessments had resulted in better attainment of course learning outcomes associated to the seventh curriculum component of the Washington Accord’s Knowledge Profile which requires the engineering graduates to demonstrate the understanding of the adverse consequences of engineering activities. In the course, Engineer and Society, the alternative assessments involved complex real-life situations and their associated constraints that required the application of what students have learned to a new situation. Alternative assessments demonstrated several merit points over the traditional assessments, particularly in assessing course learning outcomes that require higher-order thinking skills and attitudes which are deemed crucial for 21st century teaching and learning activities. It also demanded students’ judgment to determine the appropriate information and skills that were relevant in accomplishing the assessments. Even though majority of the students revealed positive acceptance towards such implementation, some of them voiced concerns on the preparation time and work needed to organise, plan and document the debate and role-play sessions. Moreover, alternative assessments may require more time and effort from the academic staff to design and plan based on the assessment criteria while taking into consideration of students’ workload.

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References 1. Iqbal, A., Manarvi, I.A.: Teachers’ attitudes and perceptions for alternative assessment techniques: a case study of Pakistani Universities. Int. J. Teach. Case Stud. 3, 131–146 (2011) 2. Ewell, P.T.: Assessment, Accountability, and Improvement: Revisiting the Tension. National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, pp. 1–23, November 2009 3. Ryan, P.: Quality assurance in higher education: a review of literature. High. Learn. Res. Commun. 5(4) (2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v5i4.257 4. Woyessa, Y., Tonder, S.P.V., Jaarsveldt, D.: Alternative student assessment in engineering education: lecturers’ perceptions and practices. In: 2nd International Multi-conference on Engineering and Technological Innovation, IMETI 2009, Orlando, Florida, USA (2009) 5. Mills, J.E., Treagust, D.F.: Engineering education, is problem-based or project-based learning the answer? Australas. J. Eng. Educ. 4, 1–16 (2003) 6. Boud, D.: Assessment and the promotion of academic values. Stud. High. Educ. 15, 101– 111 (1990) 7. Mohamad Uri, N.F., Abd Aziz, M.S.: Alternative assessment: exploring the effectiveness of self-assessment practice among engineering students. Akademika 87, 141–152 (2017) 8. Quansah, F.: Traditional or performance assessment: what is the right way in assessing leaners? Res. Hum. Soc. Sci. 8, 21–24 (2018) 9. Maarek, J.M.I., Kay, B.: Assessment of performance and student feedback in the flipped classroom. In: 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington (2015). https://doi.org/10.18260/p.23602 10. Hamisah Tapsir, S., Puteh, M.: Framing Malaysian Higher Education 4.0: Future-Proof Talents. Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Malaysia (2018) 11. IEA: Graduate Attributes and Professional Competencies Version 3, 21 June 2013. http:// www.ieagreements.org/assets/Uploads/Documents/Policy/Graduate-Attributes-andProfessionalCompetencies.pdf. Accessed 29 May 2018 12. Liew, C.P.: A Sustainable Framework for Assessing the Engineering Accreditation Council’s Programme Outcomes (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia (2019) 13. Biggs, J.: Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What the Student Does, 2nd edn. Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, Buckingham (2003) 14. Stewart, J., Shanmugam, S., Seenan, C.: Developing 21st century graduate attributes: incorporating novel teaching strategies in a physiotherapy curriculum. Eur. J. Physiother. 18 (3), 194–199 (2016) 15. Amineh, R.J., Asl, H.D.: Review of constructivism and social constructivism. J. Soc. Sci. Lit. Lang. 1(1), 9–16 (2015) 16. World Economic Forum: Deep Shift Technology Tipping Points and Societal Impact, Survey Report, September 2015. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GAC15_Technological_ Tipping_Points_report_2015.pdf. Accessed 13 Sept 2018 17. Miles, M.B., Huberman, A.M.: Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expended Source-Book, 2nd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks (1994) 18. Çaliskan, H., Kasikçi, Y.: The application of traditional and alternative assessment and evaluation tools by teachers in social studies. Procedia Soc. Behav Sci. 2, 4152–4156 (2010)

Engineering Education over the Course of Time A Technical and Didactic Journey over Four Decades: From Manual Road Map Navigation to Electronic Navigation Systems to Autonomous Cars Oliver Michler(&), Paul Schwarzbach, and Robert Richter TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany {oliver.michler,paul.schwarzbach, robert.richter}@tu-dresden.de

Abstract. The mastery of the theoretical and applied basics and their deepening are indispensable for engineering students. Over the last decades, many technical systems have changed in a revolutionary way, mostly from simplicity to complexity. This technological change shapes the engineering didactics in terms of contents and goals as well as methodology in the form of implementation and organization of engineering education in a revolutionary and evolutionarily way. This paper analyzes the subject- and domain-specific change in the learning and teaching processes over several decades in transport related engineering education using the teaching example “car navigation”. It turns out that the teaching material of lectures continuously evolved from general subject-related content to subject-specific content. Keywords: Engineering training
Study program contents
Academic tools Teaching example
Car navigation
Transport engineering




1 Introduction and Fundamentals 1.1

Technically-Oriented Educational Objectives

The past decades have let to excessive technical developments, which are sustainably influenced by the educational system, as the significance of technologies also lead to an increase of the importance of technological apprenticeship, which heavily affects engineering disciplines. On the one hand, the level of teaching conditions has to hold up to the professional, scientific criteria. On the other hand, teaching has to follow certain didactic stipulations [4]. 1.2

General Engineering-Related Teaching Objectives

Since the beginning of technical oriented engineering training, teaching objectives are monitored by the following qualitative competences:

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Knowledge and Understanding: This includes the mastery of the theoretical and application-related basics and their deepening. Building on this, the students should develop the expertise required to achieve the specific student degree. Analysis and Method: Engineers should learn to recognize problems and processes in a structured manner in order to provide a methodical solution, applying mathematical analysis, model designs or practical experiments. Development and Evaluation: Engineers should be able to develop and implement products as systems, devices or processes adopting engineering methods according to the state of the art and the product cycle. All results are to be checked for plausibility, correctness and economical reasonability. In principle, these basic competences shape the general educational conditions of technical engineering. In contrary, teaching and learning methods are changing over the course of technical development cycles. 1.3

Discussion of Technically Oriented Mediation

Within the context of the presented article, the technical model of the control loop is used as a didactic analysis tool of the teaching and impartation methodology over the last four decades. A visualization of the referenced closed control loop is displayed in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Closed control loop in common

In this analogy, the university teacher acts as an active regulator, who has access to methodical actuators, with whom the teacher influences the control variable of the still untaught student. This control function is effective until the students’ knowledge level, represented by the actual value, has reached a target value, which has been determined the university teacher. The relation between the actual value and the setpoint value as the sensor of the learning process is queried by the university teacher through appropriate assessments. If the actual and setpoint values are apart, additional control loop iterations are run until a compensation occurs.

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In addition, qualitative changes in the form of didactic modifications can be conducted, for example the introduction of seminars or practical courses. Apart from that extensive and detailed repetition of the subject related material can lead to the aspired quantitative changes. After having successfully finished the compensation process, the lecturer can proceed to the next teaching block in which the next control loop is triggered. Generally, lecturers can choose from several forms of teaching to mediate the subject matters. Among others, this includes: Lectures: This refers to regular activities during the semester under the active leadership of the lecturer, which most of the times are professors themselves. Due to the commonly large attendance and the immanent lecture character, interaction between the speaker and students is only limitedly practicable. Seminars: This kind of teaching does not primarily serve knowledge mediation, but rather focusses on the consolidation and deepening as well as on the practical application of the subject matters. For this intention, preparatory exercises are handed out, which have to be solved self-reliantly by the students. Possible solution approaches are presented by the seminar supervisor, commonly research assistants, and afterwards discussed in small groups. Practical Courses: Generally speaking, this kind of teaching and learning declares the timely limited practical deepening of beforehand acquired theoretical knowledge as well as the acquisition of procedural knowledge in the form of practically oriented skills and abilities. This usually happens with a strong technical equipment and software support. Often times it carries the term “laboratory traineeships” at universities or the “engineering traineeship” in companies, enterprises and university-related institutions. The direct interaction between students and supervisors is constantly given in this teaching form. Field Trips: This teaching and learning form includes scientific educational travels, which are directly connected to one or more teaching goals from the lecture contents. Under the organization and the supervision of the lecturer these kinds of trips proceed to other universities, research institutes and companies as well as public institutions. The didactic application of these teaching forms of technical engineering have drastically changed within the last decades in regard to content-related structuring, organizational structure and functional performance demands. As a technical teaching example, the subject of “road navigation” from the 1980s till the present is discussed. This includes the constant evolving from theoretical basic knowledge towards subject-specific contents. In this routine, the so-called programmed teaching has been established as a method of teaching and learning mediation. Additionally, digital media as didactic tools under the influence of information technology have changed a lot in recent years and their influence on everyday study and teaching life is rapidly growing.

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2 Change of Didactic and Methodology by Means of the Teaching Example “Car Navigation” 2.1

Role and Purpose of Navigation

Navigation is the procedure of leading an object along a certain way from one location to another. Within the context of car navigation, the road network represents the foundation for possible routes. Due to rising travelling distances and -speeds as well as growing traffic densities, the underlying methods for navigation have constantly changed and evolved. Their accuracy, reliability and a simple handling are a prerequisite for mass market usage, which affects car navigation in particular. 2.2

Teaching Didactic for “Car Navigation” over the Decades from the 1970s to the Present

In the 1970s, which is the starting point for this didactic journey, car navigation was limited to all-out manual navigation methods using paper cards, compass and traffic signs as landmarks. Routing was done applying so-called dead reckoning. This describes a method, where a motion is performed starting at a known initial location. From there, the movements direction and speed is determined using e.g. a compass and distance wheel, following a known map section. The reached location is then the new initial location for the application of further manual navigational steps. The travelling route essentially is the sum of single track fragments respectively straight line sections. The increase of road transportation in Germany has frequently led to traffic limitations including traffic accidents and congestions. This has raised the demand of dynamically updating navigation routes depending on aforementioned occurrences. This was first realized by sending according traffic messages to traffic participants via broadcast programs. The first amplitude-modulated traffic data transmissions were based on low- and medium frequency radio, which were used in a supra-regional manner and were therefore significantly lacking in details. Later on, frequencymodulated radio using very high frequencies (VHF) were broadcasted in a much smaller region, but the included traffic messages had to be assigned according to their local range of validity. This assumed that a regional allocation of the messages was necessary, which led to the introduction of the “Autofahrer Rundfunk Information” (ARI, engl. driver broadcast information). As identifier, a subcarrier at 57 kHz, consisting of three 19 kHz stereo pilot references was chosen and modulated accordingly, allowing sender and area of validity distinction as well as the ability of choosing a suitable traffic announcement mode [7]. The process of tuning in and out as well as sound level adjustment of the traffic announcement were performed by adopting an easily audible and recognizable signal applying the autocorrelation technique, which is also referred to as the “Hinz-Triller” (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2. Paper map and sensors for dead reckoning: mechanical distance wheel (left) [9], ARIsystem (top) [10] and technical training equipment for electrical and analogue communication simulation (bottom) [11]

In the field of communication engineering and measurement technology the car navigation and its ARI service were used as a technical teaching example. This included a general and abstract discussion of needed theoretical basics of the time and frequency domain of analog modulation signals as well the analysis of correlated signals. In line with a deductive derivation of academic knowledge contents, reaching from general to specific contents, the technical teaching example ARI contained discussion of amplitude and frequency modulation and autocorrelation (acoustic “HinzTriller”). According to Sect. 1.3, the main mediation methods in this time period were lectures and seminars. 2.3

Teaching Didactic for Car Navigation in the Decades from 1980

Starting from the 1980s, the manual navigation basis applying dead reckoning as mentioned in Sect. 2.2 was extended by applying a digital traffic data service for routing application in the scope of VHF broadcast radio. This traffic data service is referred to as Radio Data Systems (RDS) and offers a data transmission at around 2 kbit/s data rate. Within this data flow RDS data blocks extended traffic data service have been established. Initially, this included the so-called Traffic Program (TP) as traffic radio identifier, which cancelled the necessity of having an acoustic signaling. Furthermore, the data blocks of the Traffic Message Channel (TMC) were incorporated. Those included encoded traffic reports, amongst others event code, position code, expiration time.

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Fig. 3. TMC transmission chain (left) [4], simulation environment with LabVIEW in practice lesson courses (right)

Complementary to Sect. 2.2, car navigation also served as a technical teaching example in this given time period, especially in the field of communication engineering and measurement technology. Furthermore, the implementation of the TMC sercice was added as an example of a digital transmission standard. General and abstract theoretical basics of the time and frequency domain of digital modulation signals were also taught as well as characteristics of a digital transmission chain according to Fig. 3, with a special emphasis on encoding and decoding functionalities. Applying the correlation of acoustic signals as a teaching example is not suited anymore, because of the usage of digital signals. In line with a deductive derivation of academic knowledge contents, reaching from general to specific contents, the technical teaching example of the traffic radio system TMC supports the teaching contents for digital transmission methods (such as Phase Shift Keying) within the scope of analog modulation procedures (frequency modulation). According to Sect. 1.3 and in comparison with Sect. 2.2, the main mediation techniques were also lectures and seminars. Additionally, those were contemporarily being extended with teaching methods using PC-aided simulation tools within the scope of laboratory traineeships (see Sect. 1.3). The tool package Matlab/Simulink as seen in Fig. 3 commonly served as a simulation platform for signal processing. 2.4

Teaching Didactic for Car Navigation in the Decades from 1990

Starting from the 1990s, car navigation was heavily influenced by the rise of satellite navigation systems (mainly Global Positioning Service, GPS) and the introduction of digital cartographical data (digital 2D maps). This eventually led to an almost complete substitution of manual navigation techniques using paper maps. While routing was still performed by applying dead reckoning, the current geographical reference was now determined using GPS data as well as aforementioned digital maps. Using these new technologies in combination with increasing computational performance, route-finding, -optimization and -selection could be implemented in portable navigational devices. Being able to also receive TMC signals, digital traffic information could be incorporated in dynamic route planning as well.

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Fig. 4. Digital transmission chain and simulation environment of TMC (left), GNSS skyplot (top) and I-Q-constellation diagram in practical courses (bottom) [5]

Since the 1990s, the didactic value of the car navigation as technical teaching example has drastically changed, because it now incorporates a variety of fields of knowledge and technical domains. In addition to communication engineering and measurement technology, the subject now also includes satellite communications, digital signal processing, geodesy, computer engineering and traffic telematics networks. Therefore, a change in academic knowledge mediation from deductive to inductive derivation (from special to general contents) took place simultaneously. As an example, this can mean that given the concrete technical teaching example of a TMC capable navigation system, a functional knowledge analysis of all hardware and software components including methods of modulation, data transmission, positioning, navigation and routing can be performed. According to Sect. 1.3 and in comparison with Sect. 2.2, the main mediation techniques were also lectures and seminars. Adding up on generic simulation tools as described in Sect. 2.3, laboratory traineeships could be extended by using proper demonstration kits and further hardware components. This enabled both a software and hardware integration using suitable tool packages such as LabVIEW (see Fig. 4), which could then successfully be used and applied in traineeships with students working in small groups (e.g. 2–4 students per group). 2.5

Teaching Didactic for Car Navigation in the Decades from 2000

The advance in the field of car navigation has also constantly evolved ever since the new millennium, which has led to constant improvements of system components as well as the introduction of further technical innovations. This includes an improvement of mobile localization using satellite navigation systems (Deactivation of Selective Ability, Differential-GPS, Assisted-GPS and Multi-Constellation GNSS1), the introduction of three-dimensional digital maps, the substitution of VHF radio broadcasting

1

Global Navigation Satellite Systems.

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with digital audio broadcast (DAB) including the new traffic data service TPEG2 instead of the very simple TMC format [8]. Using TPEG, for the first time real-time capable, high precision (sub meter level accuracy) algorithms could be applied for navigation and dynamic routing. Those functions have successively also been transferred to other mobile devices (smartphones) (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5. Digital transmission chain and simulation environment of DAB (left), TPEG (middle) and GNSS- based navigation systems for practical courses (right) [5]

Following Sect. 2.4, car navigation also served as a technical teaching example in the given time period, continuing the inductive derivation of knowledge contents (from specialized to general contents). The taught knowledge fields have constantly been evolved and expanded. Alongside the courses mentioned in Sect. 2.4, special topic courses were introduced such vehicular communications; modelling and simulation as well optimal control, methods and procedures of decision making, in which functional approaches of information technology such as D-GPS, A-GPS, DAB or TPEG are fundamentally introduced and discussed. As didactic tools for mediation, a combination of lectures and seminars as well as laboratory traineeships were commonly used. For laboratory traineeships as described in Sect. 2.4, tools and circumstances have hardly changed as PC-based simulations and practical demonstration hardware were still commonly utilized. Though, the students’ technical equipment has drastically improved (e.g. private notebooks) as well as the availability of academic licenses for commercial software tools (e.g. Matlab/Simulink or LabVIEW) and academic discounts for hardware components (e.g. National Instruments), so laboratory traineeships can also be finished in the scope of home-based work. This possibility is generally well accepted by participating students and enables more flexible academic teaching. According to Sect. 1.3, this time period also started to include educational field trips to other research institutes (e.g. German Aerospace Center, Fraunhofer Institute) or industrial companies (e.g. BMW, Tracetronic). Those field trips also serve as a basis for future student internships within the engineering order of study as companies and students have the possibility for personal interaction.

2

Transport Protocol Experts Group.

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3 Applying Programmed Teaching to the Modern Field of Car Navigation 3.1

Programmed Teaching

The here used term programmed teaching has a strong reference to engineering and technical didactics. It describes a kind of teaching and learning, which follows a planned and in its results secured functional program, following a linear (seminars follows a lecture), branched (practical course parallel with a seminar) or fed back (recurrence) structure, similar to programs in the field of computer science. According [1, 2] and [3] this includes three main characteristics: (1) Information segmentation: The learning goal needs to be defined and formulated as clear as possible. (2) Active reaction: The learning steps need to lead to the formulated learning goal in a logical sequence. (3) Confirmation of success: The student needs to be able to successfully pass the subject when finishing a certain percentage of knowledge units (e.g. 95%). 3.2

Automated Car Driving as Engineering Teaching Example for Specialized Teaching Didactics in the Current Time Period

In the current decade since 2010 it is clearly observable that programmed teaching according to Sect. 3.1 has become established in the field of engineering didactics. Besides lectures, seminars and practical courses follow prescribed tasks and structures, which are repeated until a correct or suitable solution approach is present. Only after that, the next knowledge block is started in the form of a new lecturing chapter, seminar fraction or a next step within a practical course. In particular, the knowledge and teaching areas in the field of car navigation have drastically changed since 2010. Especially with the rise of connected and automated driving for all modes of traffic (road-, rail-, water- and airborne transportation), the variety and the level of detail of the lecture material increased, which also promotes the utilization of programmed teaching. Given the example of car navigation, this means the introduction of a vast variety of different, independent technologies which are displayed in Fig. 6. For each of the listed technologies a suitable course is offered. In comparison with Sect. 3.1 lectures, seminars with arithmetical problems, laboratory practical courses with simulations and traineeships with live experimental setups [6] are provided. An overview of the variety and the sequence of these teaching offerings is given in Fig. 7. In regard to their specific mathematical, technical or practical contents, each course is designed with the utilization of seminars, programming tutorials and traineeships using simulators as well as data collection on real-world test tracks. As a learning progress monitoring, using the idea of active reaction (see Sect. 3.1), starting quizzes for practical courses, module examination at the semester ending as well as final exams for each study program (bachelor, master or diploma thesis) can be applied. This can

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Fig. 6. Overview of telematic technologies related to the automated driving of cars (blue: communication; orange: localization; green: data fusion, yellow: digital map)

include several examination types, such as oral, written, multiple choice or oral defenses. As confirmation of success points, predicates, grades or simple certificates can be used. All things considered, the experiences in the field of complex knowledge mediation given the technical example of automated driving shows, that only a meaningful and expedient combination of expert knowledge, methods and multimedia can provide a proper foundation for student learning. The programmed teaching offers a substantial didactic basis for engineering, technical and academic education.

Fig. 7. Typical transmission chain of automated car driving (top), practical course sensor equipment from lab uo to field test area (down) and telematics specific course topics (right), related to scientific knowledge [6]

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4 Summary and Conclusions The aim of engineering education is to impart skills that students need for their later professional occupation as engineers. Over the last decades, many technical systems have changed in a revolutionary way, mostly from simplicity to complexity. This technical change also characterizes the didactics and methodology of engineering education, which is reflected in the contribution to the change in the technical teaching example “car navigation” from 1970 to the present as well as the future. The results of the analysis show that the lectures in traffic engineering have developed one-on-one from subject-specific theoretical to subject-specific specialized content. The so-called programmed teaching has become established as a method of teaching and learning mediation. On the other hand, digital media as didactic tools under the influence of computer technology have changed a lot in recent years and their influence on everyday study and teaching life is rapidly growing. Acknowledgment. The idea and content of this paper partially originated from the international exchange project STING (Strengthening Engineering Training, consortium formed by TU Dresden, USACH, CAMCHAL and FESTO among other German and Chilean companies), which is why the authors would like to thank for the provided inputs.

References 1. Melezinek, A.: Ingenieurpädagogik: Praxis der Vermittlung technischen Wissens. Springer, Wien (1999) 2. Stangl, W.: Stichwort: ‘programmierter Unterricht’. Online Lexikon für Psychologie und Pädagogik (2019). https://lexikon.stangl.eu/11876/programmierter-unterricht/. Accessed 01 Apr 2019 3. Skinner, B.F.: Verbal Behavior. F. Skinner Foundation (1997). Published originally in 1957. Reprinted by the Foundation in 1997 4. Michler, O.: Strengthening Engineering Training at Chilean Universities Through Practice Partnerships: Educational and Research Example from TU Dresden. Kickoff-Meeting Project STING, 10 October 2017. Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), Santiago de Chile, Chile (2017) 5. Michler, O.: Engineering education in technical change of times analysis example: from the road atlas to the use of navigation systems up to a fully automated vehicle. In: International Conference Project STING, 30 October 2018. Universidad de Santiago de Chile (USACH), Santiago de Chile, Chile (2018) 6. Schwarzbach, P., Reichelt, R., Michler, O.: Cooperative positioning for urban environments based on GNSS and IEEE 802.11p. In: 15th Workshop on Positioning, Navigation and Communications (WPNC), Bremen, Germany (2018) 7. Vanaja, M., Rajasekar, S., Arulsami, S.: Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in Education. Neelkamal Publisher, Dehli (2016) 8. Drury, G., Markaria, G., Pickavance, K.: Coding and Modulation for Digital Television. Kluwer Academics Publisher, London (2001)

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9. https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallblog/3040626721. Licence free download: Accessed 18 Aug 2019 10. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Blaupunkt_Berlin_IQR_88.jpg. Licence free download: Accessed 18 July 2019 11. https://www.flickr.com/photos/stiefkind/29998536310/in/photostream/. Licence free download: Accessed 18 July 2019

Flipped Classroom and Serious Games as a New Learning Model in Experimental Sciences at the University Lynda Ouchaouka1(&), Kamal Omari2(&), Mohammed Talbi3(&), Mohamed Moussetad4(&), Najat El Amrani5(&), and Lahoucine Labriji2(&) 1

Laboratoire d’Ingénierie et Matériaux - LIMAT -Observatoire de Recherche en Didactique et Pédagogie Universitaire – ORDIPU, Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik Av Driss El Harti Sidi Othmane, B.P 7955, Casablanca, Morocco [email protected] 2 Département de Mathématiques et Informatique Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik, Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik Av Driss El Harti Sidi Othmane, B.P 7955, Casablanca, Morocco [email protected], [email protected] 3 Observatoire de Recherche en Didactique et Pédagogie Universitaire – ORDIPU Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik, Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik Av Driss El Harti Sidi Othmane, B.P 7955, Casablanca, Morocco [email protected] 4 Laboratoire d’Ingénierie et Matériaux - LIMAT FSBM - Observatoirede Recherche en Didactique et Pédagogie Universitaire – ORDIPU, Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik Av Driss El Harti Sidi Othmane, B.P 7955, Casablanca, Morocco [email protected] 5 Département de Biologie - Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik Laboratoire de Biologie et Santé – LBS, Université Hassan II de Casablanca, Faculté des Sciences Ben M’Sik Av Driss El Harti Sidi Othmane, B.P 7955, Casablanca, Morocco [email protected] Abstract. In this work, we present a new model of teaching based on flipped classroom and serious gaming in order to improve the efficiency of the training in experimental science at the university. We shall demonstrate the relevance of this model regarding the scientific disciplines particularly, the cell biology. The proposed study is based on a statistical investigation on the module of cell biology teached during the first year of undergraduate bachelor in the faculty of science Ben M’sick at Hassan II university of Casablanca. There is a consensus that both flipped classroom and serious games have a significant potential as tools for instruction and they must be used appropriately in pedagogical and learning strategies. However, their effectiveness in terms of learning outcomes are still understudied mainly due to the complexity involved in building, managing and assessing. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 731–739, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_69

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Assessment


Serious game
Game design
Pedagogical

1 Introduction Flipped classroom and Serious games in education and training open up many opportunities for complex experimental concepts learning and teaching in higher education. Particularly with regard to the combined use of the effects of play and teaching that puts the student at the center of his own learning as an effective actor advancing at his own pace and developing a personalized learning path.

2 General Context The current context of Moroccan higher education faces several challenges related to massification, the first year at the university records a high failure rate, particularly with regard to scientific disciplines, and language barrier since all scientific disciplines are taught in French to students who were taught in Arabic. This paper presents a methodology for an experimental teaching model by flipped classroom with serious games based on a pedagogical scenario in the module of cell biology. At the conceptual level, it identifies the pedagogical objectives, the main obstacles to learning, by specifying the obstacles bound to language barriers and those related to elementary concepts and elementary requirements for understanding the course in cell biology. To this end, we begin by presenting the results of the students enrolled in semester1 for the cell biology module as well as their scores in the French language-positioning test, these results will reflect the state of this module and the combined difficulties encountered by the newly enrolled students. 2.1

Statistical Investigation of the Cell Biology Module at the Faculty of Sciences Ben M’sick Hassan II University -Casablanca

In order to assess the state of the art of this module, we have analyzed the results obtained by the students over three years. We begin by presenting the results of the students enrolled in semester 1 for the cell biology module as well as their scores in the online level test of French language, these results will reflect the state of this module and the combined difficulties encountered by the newly enrolled students. 2.2

Statistics of New Enrolled Students in Semester 1 in the Module of Cell Biology at the Faculty of Sciences Ben M’sick (Hassan II University of Casablanca)

The Fig. 1, describes the fluctuations of the number of new enrolled students registered in the Programmed courses of Life and Environmental Sciences as well as their rates of validation in the module of cell biology for the years: 2015–2016, 2016–2017 and 2017–2018.

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Fig. 1. Rate of validation of the new enrolled students in Program of Life and Environmental Sciences (SVTU)

2.3

Scores in the Online Level Test for French Language

In Morocco, language teaching is one of the national priorities and is supported by the Ministry of Higher Education. Indeed, during high school, studies are given in Arabic language. And at the university all the scientific courses are taught in French, which leads to a high dropout rate in the first year, and considerably affects the employability of graduates from the Moroccan University. On the other hand, the massification accentuates the difficulty of providing language teaching in optimal conditions given the capacity of the universities, which despite the considerable efforts remains below the growing number of students. The Fig. 2, presents the results of the online placement test for French language for the students involved in the undergraduate Program of Life and Environmental Sciences (SVTU).

Results of posiƟonning test in french language for the SVTU 2017-2018

Fig. 2. Results of positioning online test in French language fort the SVTU 2017–2018

The results of the test make it possible to form subgroups of students by levels for a blended learning teaching. Students from the different subgroups at level A will follow

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hybrid teaching (face-to-face and distance) in Semester1 and Semester 2. Students from level B are considered to be of a fairly good level and are therefore exempt from the classroom teaching. The results of the Online Placement test for French language clearly show that the level of comprehension and expression in French is very low, making it difficult for students to acquire the lessons. From the results mentioned above, it’s clear that students combine the difficulties encountered in acquiring cell biology skills with those encountered in French language, which easily explains the validation rates in this module, which do not exceed 12% over three consecutive years. In this work, we sent a questionnaire to the pedagogical team and to students responsible of this module in order to identify the pedagogical methods used to date and the possibilities for improvement via tutorials, online courses, simulations, videos or serious games. This questionnaire aims to prepare the ground for collaboration between our team and the pedagogical team for an experiment combining the use of flipped classrooms and serious games in the teaching of this module. The pedagogical team have made it clear that students combine the lack of prerequisites with French language. And they are keen to have additional tools to help students overcome these difficulties.

3 Flipped Classrooms “The term “flipped classroom” represents the learning approach that exchanges the time used to deliver basic knowledge in class and the out-of-class time for applying the knowledge or doing homework” (Bergmann and Sams 2012). This learning approach is using two kind of activities, online “out of class” activities based on blended learning with asynchronous videos, providing learning contents before class, and “in class activities” where students will apply the knowledge they have learned in practicing, discussing and solving problems in class with the guidance of teachers. There is a consensus that flipped learning has a significant potential as an effective learning method regarding the impact of student’s engagement in their learning process, it enable effective practice and interactions peer to peer and peer to teachers, however this model need to be supported by tutorials and instructional videos with effective learning guidance. 3.1

The Effectiveness in Education

This learning approach is using two kind of activities, online “out of class” activities based on blended learning with asynchronous videos, providing learning contents before class, and “in class activities” where students will apply the knowledge they have learned in practicing, discussing and solving problems in class with the guidance of teachers.

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Therefore, in this study, a flipped classroom approach is proposed to improve students’ learning performance in a cell biology course with the design of a serious game based on pedagogical scenario integrated in the flipped classroom concept.

4 Serious Games in Education Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in video games of all kinds, and with the advent of the digital natives as learners, it has become more and more obvious to use the appeal of video games for learning and teaching purposes, which has generated serious games. There is a consensus that serious gaming is a combination of entertainment and education in computer games (Stege 2011). A serious game is a game wich primary purpose is pedagogical and which uses play mechanisms in a computer context (Gagnon-Mountzouris et al. 2016). All the research work carried out on the relevance of serious games in learning processes has demonstrated the effectiveness of serious games in engaging and motivating students during their learning (Bourgonjon et al. 2010; Gibbs 1992; Kim and Chang 2010; Lieberman 2006; Pandey and Zimitat 2007; Squire 2003; Virvou et al. 2005; Zepp 2005). The game has an interactive dimension that maximizes the effectiveness of learning, particularly in terms of curiosity and creativity. The world of pedagogy should work on adapting learning mechanics to the new possibilities offered by technology. In this study, we try to improve the effectiveness of a serious game design based on a pedagogical scenario, with specific objectives in learning and assessment to be integrated into our flipped classroom system, with a particular attention to the balance between the playful and the educational dimension.

5 A Flipped Learning Approach Combined to Serious Gaming In this work, we decided to take up this experiment involving all the stakeholders (students, pedagogical team, educational engineer and developers). The teacher responsible of the module will provide the contents (courses, slides, in class and out class activities, assessments…). The game’s activities will be proposed for discussion to the students with the guidance of the teacher, who will thus be involved in this project from the development to the implementation and the final assessment of the game. 5.1

Teaching Model Design

A flipped learning system was developed for supporting the learning of the module of cell biology. The system consists of a prerequisites system, an out-of-class learning system, an in class learning system, an assessment system, a teacher management system, a serious gaming activity, and a database, as shown in Fig. 3.

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At the beginning of the course the teacher introduces the syllabus and the learning model, an instructional video on the LMS Moodle is presented as a tutorial for accessing to the course online, the hole course with quizzes activities is on the “Opale Scenarichain” an editorial chain for creation of learning contents. Once the students understand the learning mode, they are asked to take a level test to assess their prerequisites, after the test students are invited to discover the serious game, the 1st level: initiation. This first level of play has a double objective, to attract the student to the new model and to allow him/her to upgrade to take the course. Once this level is completed, students move on to the activities out class (courses), with the assessment system, the teacher notes the difficulties encountered by the students, these questions and any misunderstandings will be the subject of the in class activities. Once the learning objectives defined by the teacher are achieved, students can go to the activities out class, where the teacher will activate as they go along in order to maintain a balance between the two kinds of activities during the trial period The other levels of the serious game will be related to specific difficulties in the module well known by the teacher, one level for discovering and an expert level. During the first semester, students will become familiar with this model, their answers to the quizzes and the various formative evaluations will feed the database that will be analyzed after this experimentation phase. The game will be discussed during classroom activities in order to adjust the best play and educational activities with the teacher and students, and the number of trials/errors will be analyzed to measure engagement, motivation and educational effectiveness with students.

Fig. 3. The model learning based on flipped classroom and serious gaming

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Game Design

For the game design, we started by a software based on drag and drop game engine that anyone can use to create professional looking games. No coding or programming skills required. All the tools required to make the game are included in the software. From adding multiple worlds, effects and animations to customize the entire workflow of the game, everything can be done in minutes. Advanced settings allow quickly building levels, modifying individual worlds and switching from one section to another with a simple click. This choice was motivated by the need to start the implementation and to test the adaptability of the software. Green areas in Fig. 4 are user interfaces (which can be user interface overlays for worlds or menus) and blue areas are our game world’s Figs. 5, 6 and 7. In the game design, we attach to each game activity a pedagogical objective; the scores, trial and error, as well as the progression in the game will create social loops within the community of learners/ players that are the catalysts of motivation and immersion.

Fig. 4. The game Mind Map

Fig. 5. The player welcoming interface

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Fig. 6. The first level interface of the prokaryot cell

Fig. 7. The first level Initiation of the eukaryote cell

6 Conclusion The flipped learning model combined to serious gaming open up many opportunities, to build a multi-tool teaching model, rich in activities, which will reverse the paradigm of the classical and rigorous university teaching. We are convinced that once completed this model, which will be presented to a test group at the beginning of the 2019 academic year, will offer a reflective subject concerning flipped classrooms and serious gaming integration and its ability to transform students into real actors in their curricula. Obviously, this work will mobilize several actors around the cellular biology module (teachers, students, multimedia engineers, graphics designers, developers,…). A systematic evaluation for this project will be adopted as soon as it is launched in order to assess the impact and before its generalization.

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References Bergmann, J., Sams, A.: Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day, pp. 120–190. International Society for Technology in Education, Washington DC (2012) Bourgonjon, J., Valcke, M., Soetaert, R., Schellens, T.: Students’ perceptions about the use of video games in the classroom. Comput. Educ. 54, 1145–1156 (2010) Gagnon-Mountzouris, V.: Jeu sérieux, rapport sommaire sur la pertinence du jeu sérieux à l’université vicky gagnon-mountzouris, marie-michèle lemieux, jean-philippe pouliot groupe de travail de la promotion du développement des compétences informationnelles (GT-PDCI) (2016) Gibbs, G.: Improving the Quality of Student Learning. Technical and Educational Services Ltd., Bristol (1993) Kim, S., Chang, M.: Computer games for the math achievement of diverse students. Educ. Technol. Soc. 13(3), 224–232 (2010) Lieberman, D.: What can we learn from playing interactive games? In: Vorderer, P., Bryant, J. (eds.) Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences, pp. 379–397. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (2006) Pandey, P., Zimitat, C.: Medical students’ learning of anatomy: memorisation, understanding and visualisation. Med. Educ. 41(1), 7–14 (2007) Squire, K.D.: Video games in education. Int. J. Intell. Games Simul. 2(1), 49–62 (2003) Stege, L.: Serious games in learning processes. BSc thesis, Tilburg University, The Netherlands (2011) Virvou, M., Katsionis, G., Manos, K.: Combining software games with education: evaluation of its educational effectiveness. Educ. Technol. Soc. 8(2), 54–65 (2005) Zepp, R.A.: Teachers' perceptions on the roles on educational technology. Educ. Technol. Soc. 8 (2), 102–106 (2005)

Poster: Development and Implementation of Electronic Applications Based on Arduino Platform for a First Basic Course Francisco David Trujillo-Aguilera(&), Elidia Beatriz Blázquez-Parra, Antonio Palomares Vigil, and Teresa Marín Bao Industrial Engineering School, Malaga, Spain {fdtrujillo,ebeatriz}@uma.es, [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. This paper shows a learning guide about the use of Arduino platform and the different utilities that can be implemented based on this platform for a first basic course. The paper can be useful as a guide for someone who wants to start in the world of microcontroller programming, with examples to consolidate the knowledge learned. Some students of the School of Industrial Engineering of the University of Malaga (Degree in Industrial Design) approach the study of an engineering career with little knowledge of electronics. This degree contains basic skills on learning electronics and the use of the Arduino platform and its development possibilities can offer students an interesting view of electronics, making better use of classes. The work is based on both theoretical (to make the components known) and practical (using real assemblies) development to consolidate the knowledge learned. Therefore, once the basic components necessary to carry out various practices have been explained, the theoretical performance and the programming of Arduino is explained and the various practices that will be set up in the laboratory are presented, as an application of Arduino for different uses. All applications are accompanied by information about the components used, an assembly guide illustrated with Fritzing schematics and a photo of the actual assembly, as well as an explanation of the instructions used to program the microcontroller illustrated with an image of the code used. The main idea of this work is to replace the traditional laboratory practices that require more advanced knowledge in electronics with a set of simple practices carried out in Arduino that allow students to have an approximate idea of basic electronics with little knowledge. After three years of carrying out this new methodology for this first basic electronic course, the surveys demonstrate a better adaptation of the students to the study of electronics. In addition, the marks obtained have improved considerably and the students have the sensation of learning electronics in a simple and fun way. Keywords: ICT
Educational innovation Industrial Design


Arduino
Basic electronics


© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 740–746, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_70

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1 Introduction and Context Electronics is defined as the branch of physics and engineering specialization, which studies and employs systems whose operation is based on the conduction and control of the microscopic flow of electrons in various media (gases, vacuum, semiconductors…) subjected to the action of electric and magnetic fields [1]. Therefore, it also studies devices linked to electrons, such as diodes, valves, transistors or integrated circuits and is responsible for the design and application of electronic circuits whose operation depends on the flow of electrons to generate, transmit, receive, exchange or store information contained in electrical signals [2]. There is an enormous diversity of electronic circuits with different functionalities such as, for example, wave generation, signal amplification or attenuation, or the control and modulation of these and their logical operations. The subject “Electronics and Product Automation”, located in the third year is the only contact with this discipline for students studying the Degree in Engineering in Industrial Design and Product Development. Therefore, easy access to technology is pursued without requiring great technical knowledge. Both the recent development platforms for electronics (digital and analogue) and the recent developments of open software and hardware, such as Arduino or Processing [3], have made it possible to carry out this objective, revolutionising the way engineers work and extending its scope to other fields, such as digital art, for example. Thanks to the development of diverse electronic practices, of ascending difficulty, it is possible to deepen in the diverse explained electronic elements, as well as to reuse them in practices of greater difficulty, combining the acquired knowledge in the first implemented practices. Finally, a teaching and learning guide is developed to learn about the different utilities of the Arduino development system.

2 Method and Purpose The work is based on both theoretical (to make the components known) and practical (using real assemblies) development to acquire and strengthen the various knowledge generated during the teaching of the subject. To this end, a brief description of the development system chosen for the implementation of the different electronic practices is given, followed by the presentation and proposal of various designs, increasing their complexity as the subject progresses, combining the components used in the less difficult practices. These more difficult practices will also require a certain amount of programming. Arduino is an open microcontroller development platform coupled with an intuitive programming language that allows development using the integrated development environment [4]. By linking Arduino to different components, such as sensors, leds,

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buzzers, complementary modules, and other integrated circuits, different control systems can be achieved [5]. In the market you can find different models of Arduino boards [6], which differ between them depending on the physical size, the number of pins, the microcontroller model that incorporates, and so on. The different plates integrate similar microcontrollers, developed and manufactured by the Atmel brand. As for the programming base, the software that it presents is free, free and multiplatform, allowing to program in the own microcontroller of the board what is wanted to execute. This transmission of information between the computer and the board is carried out by means of a USB cable connected to the Arduino. The use of Arduino is becoming increasingly popular due to the fact that its programming is quite intuitive, not at all complex and, in addition, it offers an infinite number of possibilities for the realization of projects that include sensors, actuators and other electronic components.

3 Results The different electronic designs proposed are shown in Table 1. Each includes the following documentation: information about the components used; an illustrated assembly guide with circuit schematics; photographs of the actual assembly and measurements, if applicable; and an explanation of the instructions used to carry out the programming necessary for that design, including the code used. Table 1. Proposals for electronic designs based on Arduino Practice number Description of practice 1 Control of one LED with one push-button 2 Step-by-step motor control with one push-button 3 Reading a potentiometer 4 Reading an optical sensor 5 Dimmer of an LED with a potentiometer 6 Speed regulator of a direct current motor with a potentiometer 7 Buzzer activated by an ultrasonic sensor 8 Development of a theremin 9 Temperature and humidity meter 10 Distance meter

These applications that the students must carry out suppose a time not superior to 45 min for the most complex system (distance meter). With all this, the students can be convinced of how simple it can be to carry out different electronic applications

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knowing the basics (speed regulator of a motor, buzzer activated by a sensor, measurement of temperature and humidity, etc.). As an example, one of the practices proposed is detailed below, namely that relating to the development of a theremin (practice number 8). A theremin is a musical instrument that has a pair of metallic antennas that, when approaching or moving away from them, allow to control the volume and frequency of the note emitted. In this assembly, Fig. 1, an LDR (resistance dependent on the intensity of the incident light) will be used, which makes the function of these antennas, as a close movement detector (when bringing the hand closer, for example, the intensity of the light decreases and its resistance increases) and the piezoelectric buzzer as a sound emitter when receiving current.

Fig. 1. Sample of used LDR and piezoelectric buzzer

For mounting, therefore, the two components described above are needed, as well as some extra components (basically resistors), to adapt the connections of the Arduino board. One LDR terminal is connected to the 5 V voltage source directly, and the other terminal is connected to ground (0 V) via a 1 kΩ resistor and the Arduino analog “0” pin. To connect to the buzzer, one terminal is connected directly to ground, and the other terminal is connected to the digital pin “8” on the Arduino board via a 220 Ω resistor. Figure 2 shows the various schematics. Figure 3 shows the real mounting. Finally, as far as programming is concerned, the buzzer has been configured as output, the LDR as input (although it is not necessary) and the serial port has been initialized at 9,600 bauds. As programming language, the instruction “analogRead ()” has been used to read the value of the LDR; the instruction “Serial.println ()” has been used to show this value by the serial monitor; the instruction “map ()” has been used to transform the value obtained from the LDR to a frequency value for the buzzer. In addition, a specific instruction called “tone ()” has been used to play back tones with the buzzer. The result is shown in Fig. 4. In the same way as the detailed one for this practice, it is possible to follow the different instructions to implement the rest of the proposed electronic practices.

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Fig. 2. Schematics of the assembly of a theremin

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Fig. 3. Real assembly of a theremin

Fig. 4. Code developed for theremin assembly

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4 Conclusions and Future Works The results and the surveys carried out by the students show that the knowledge acquired is strengthened by the visit to the laboratory and the work carried out on the Arduino platform, thanks to the detailed guide to the various basic circuit proposals. Also, thanks to the development of this detailed guide, it is possible to have a better use of time in the laboratory, improving skills and knowledge of students. The work presented is open to future modifications in order to further improve the teaching/learning process. By way of example, several suggestions are proposed to extend the guide: • Development of new assemblies deepening in the used components. • Use of new programming instructions to achieve more advanced assemblies. • Development of new assemblies using Arduino “Shields” to work with network communication.

References 1. Hambley, A.R.: Electrónica. Prentice-Hall, Madrid (2003) 2. Malik, N.R.: Circuitos Electrónicos: Análisis, simulación y diseño. Prentice-Hall, Madrid (2003) 3. Torrente Artero, Ó.: Arduino: Curso práctico de formación. RC Libros, Madrid (2013) 4. Blum, J.: Arduino a fondo. Anaya Multimedia, Madrid (2014) 5. Floyd, Th. L.: Electronic Devices. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River (1999) 6. Perea, F.: Arduino Essentials: Enter the World of Arduino and its Peripherals and Start Creating Interesting Projects. Packt Publishing Ltd., Birmingham (2015)

Problem and Project Based Learning

Poster: Design of PBL Educational Program in Collaboration with Printing Company Paper Toy/Paper Craft Development Project Akiyuki Minamide(&) and Kazuya Takemata International College of Technology, Kanazawa, Japan {minamide,takemata}@neptune.kanazawa-it.ac.jp

Abstract. To educate engineers, we need a method for social implementation education. Therefore, educational innovation including social cooperation has started in Japan. Under this program, students are asked to identify social issues and develop solutions. This paper describes the social implementation project utilized with fourth-year students of International College of Technology, Kanazawa. Keywords: Engineering design


Active learning
Project based learning

1 Introduction In recent years, in an attempt to introduce project-based learning (PBL) and active learning at institutions of higher education, instructors have conducted social implementation education [1, 2], which attempts to solve concrete problems in society. At International College of Technology (ICT), Kanazawa, education and learning in engineering design have been actively carried out, mainly consisting of hands-on group projects. Studies have also been conducted that consider the effect of extracurricular activities on regular classes. In social implementation education, cooperation with outside organizations, companies, and regions is indispensable. Even if students discover problems from a wide range of fields, it is difficult to find outside organizations that will cooperate in the process of finding solutions. Therefore, as an early stage of introducing social implementation education, we attempted implementation within a limited field. In this paper, we describe a project we practiced in cooperation with a local printing company.

2 Outline of Educational Practice ICT is a college of technology, which is a special kind of school in Japan that is different from technical colleges in other parts of the world. A college of technology provides graduates with an Associate’s degree upon graduation, but that degree also includes three years of high school. Therefore, when students complete junior high school, they choose to either enter a high school or a college of technology. A college © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 749–754, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_71

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of technology is a ‘high specialty school,’ and as such it offers a 5-year intensive study curriculum that integrates the general education of a high school with specialized technical training of a vocational school. The fourth-year students of ICT correspond to the first-year students of a general university. This education was attempted in the subject of Design and Drawing with fourth-year students in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The course included one 100-min lesson each week for 30 weeks. Since the target students were unfamiliar with the project activities of the team, we lectured for the first 20 weeks to give students the skills necessary for team activities. In the first 15 weeks, students were taught to use a freehand sketch technique called communication drawing [3, 4] to smooth out activities and to organize and summarize ideas; in the next 5 weeks, students were taught techniques for analyzing engineering design processes and problems, generating ideas, and organizing ideas. Actual project activities took place in the final 10 weeks. 2.1

Engineering Design Process

The project was basically executed in the following engineering design process [5]: (1) discovering the problems, (2) clarifying the problems, (3) creating ideas, (4) evaluating/selecting ideas, and (5) realizing the idea. Therefore, before engaging in actual project activities, we taught students how to proceed with team projects, methods for analyzing problems, and techniques for originating and organizing ideas. 2.2

Project Activities

The local printing company, Wellco Holdings Co., provided students with a theme. Therefore, the first step, identifying the problems in the engineering design process, was done by the company, and students started with the second step, clarifying the problems. The theme provided by the company was “Proposed toys with stickers that children can stick or peel off freely in casual restaurants.” This special sticker, called a magic sticker (MS) [6], has the following features: It is printable on both sides of the sticker, is printable on release paper, and has partial paste on the back of the sticker. Many families with children visit casual restaurants in Japan. Gifts for children tend to be simple toys, and children play with them while they wait for their food to arrive. The company challenged students to propose a toy using MS that can be enjoyed by children younger than primary school age.

3 Student Project 3.1

Project Procedures

The student project was carried out using the following procedures.

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(1) Discovering the problems (Providing the company’s theme to students) At the beginning of the project, engineers from Wellco Holdings Co. came and provided the company’s selected theme to students. They explained to students the features of the MS, problems, examples of its present use, and so on (Fig. 1). (2) Clarifying the problems After listening to the explanations, students were divided into seven teams to begin team activities. Each team consisted of three or four members. Students extracted features of the MS and clarified the problems of this project.

Fig. 1. Wellco Holdings Co. engineers explain MS.

(3) Creating ideas Students created many ideas using the brainstorming method. (4) Evaluating and selecting ideas In this process, each student team initially established five criteria for evaluating ideas, a number of the ideas devised were scored in accordance with the criteria, and the team selected their best ideas. (5) Implementing and improving ideas A prototype will be produced at the end of the project activity, but in order to refine its ideas, the team will organize its ideas into B1-sized posters and present them to printing company engineers and other students. In this presentation, the students were able to get advice from others outside the team, and the ideas were improved. Figure 2 shows two posters created by students before planning their final idea. (6) Producing a prototype To confirm their ideas, students made prototypes using simple materials such as printing paper, glue, tape, and colored pencils.

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Fig. 2. Posters produced by students

(7) Making final presentations Each team made presentations using slides and prototypes created by printing company engineers and fielded various questions and opinions from the engineers. Figure 3 shows pictures of the final presentation.

Fig. 3. Final presentation by students

3.2

Final Ideas by Students

Students came up with ideas such as quizzes, board games, coloring books, paper crafts, and shogi. Among the many ideas, not only printed stickers were used, but also engineers evaluated highly the idea of products that children could paint freely and use as paper crafts. These ideas were further examined by the printing company’s designers and engineers, and became actual products, as shown in Fig. 4, which were used in casual restaurants in Japan.

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Fig. 4. Products resulting from students’ ideas

3.3

Questionnaire Survey After Project Completion

After the project was finished, we administered a questionnaire survey. The survey target was 27 students who had taken the classes. Figure 5 shows the results of the survey. Q1 Have you been able to improve your ability by being given a theme from the company? Q2 Have you been able to improve your ability by receiving advice and comments from company engineers? Q3 Have you been able to improve your ability by prototyping your idea? Q4 Have you been able to work actively on this project? Q5 Have you been satisfied with this class?

Fig. 5. Results of the survey

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For every question, 78% to 88% of students answered positively. Furthermore, the engineers’ participation in the students’ projects significantly raised the quality level of students’ projects. Since students were able to come up with ideas that engineers had not previously thought of, we determined that social implementation education is effective for engineering education.

4 Summary In this paper, we described social implementation education practiced in cooperation with a local printing company. Some of the ideas proposed by students were of high quality that led to commercialization. The questionnaire results showed that many students had a positive opinion of this project activity. Acknowledgment. This work was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.

References 1. Yagihita, H., Fujio, M.: Incorporating a social implementation program into a manufacturing education program in Japan: case study in collaboration with a medical facility. Proc. Manuf. 10, 1054–1065 (2017) 2. http://www.innovative-kosen.jp/Innovative-Japan-Project-by-KOSEN/ 3. Nakamura, S., Matsuishi, M.: Education of drawing courses and students’ achievements (how to develop and make the best use of freehand sketch skills). In: The 3rd International Conference on Design Engineering and Science, Pilsen, pp. 43–48 (2014) 4. Nakamura, S.: Idea Drawing: How to Draw. Tanaka & Shobundo Graphic Art Co., Ltd., Kanazawa (2011) 5. Cross, N.: Engineering Design Methods–Strategies for Product Design. Wiley, Hoboken (2008) 6. https://www.well-corp.jp/factory/all/seihin26/. [in Japanese]

Poster: Design of an Educational Program for Freshmen Before Practicing Project Based Learning: Utilization of Digital Storytelling Kazuya Takemata(&) and Akiyuki Minamide International College of Technology, Kanazawa, Japan {takemata,minamide}@neptune.kanazawa-it.ac.jp

Abstract. Our practical experience of education has shown that the group activity-based PBL process requires the ability to express one’s own ideas to others (communication skill), the ability to abstract problems and develop one’s thoughts (computational thinking skill), and the ability to move ahead with tasks in a planned manner (skill to see the big picture of matters). Therefore, we gave our attention to digital storytelling as an activity that will sharpen these three skills and that lets a student complete assignments by himself or herself. In this paper we reports on classroom exercise into which digital storytelling activities were incorporated. According to a questionnaire survey conducted after the class, our education program received positive feedback from about 80% or more of the students who took the course. Keywords: Digital storytelling


PBL
Active learning

1 Introduction Our practical experience of education has shown that the PBL process based on group activities requires the ability to express one’s own ideas to others (communication skill), the ability to abstract problems and develop one’s thoughts (computational thinking skill), and the ability to move ahead with tasks in a planned manner (skill to see the big picture of matters) [1, 2]. If educators can successfully provide students with an education program that nurtures these skills before they are actually introduced to PBL exercise, we believe that the students by themselves will develop more challenging PBL practice afterward [3, 4]. In addition, these three skills will have favorable impacts on students’ learning through “the effective process by which ideas that could lead to problem solving are put forward,” which is referred to as design thinking that is utilized in PBL exercise. Thus, we gave our attention to digital storytelling as a teaching material that develops these three skills before students work on PBL exercise. Digital storytelling is an activity of producing and presenting “digital stories that represent people’s thoughts and feelings,” which was started in the 1990s in the United States [5]. The length of each digital storytelling work is about two to four minutes and a number of universities in Europe have adopted digital storytelling in their respective curricula. Digital storytelling has been employed in Japan, too, as an activity of expressing and presenting © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 755–759, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_72

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ideas of learners, ranging from junior high school students to college students. It is required in digital storytelling to condense one’s thoughts and present them as digital contents. We believe that the affinity is strong between digital storytelling and PBL, as the processes that learners experience through digital storytelling activities are similar to learners’ experience in the processes of the PBL program that is based on our engineering design process. This paper assumes the sophomores at our college of technology to be students who have not been introduced to PBL yet. These learners will be required to engage in more advanced PBL processes in higher grades (their fourth and fifth years) at our college and after they get transferred to university. Therefore, targeting these students, this study examines whether digital storytelling practice is feasible as an education program that broadens the above mentioned three skills.

2 Digital Storytelling Exercise Sophomores of the department of global information at our college were offered “Digital Storytelling Exercise” in “Creative Design II” in academic year 2017. A total of 43 participating students were divided into a first group of 22 (for the spring and summer quarters) and a second group of 21 (for the fall and winter quarters). When one group was attending the digital storytelling class, the other group was engaged in another course (computer web design). For both groups, the period of the course was 15 weeks, with about two hours allotted to each week (two 50-min lectures per week). The students used animation as a means of communication in the digital storytelling exercise course. Our digital storytelling exercise class consists of three parts: 2.1

Scanimation

Scanimation is also referred to as slit animation. In the first three lessons of our 15week course (from the first week to the third week), the students produced animations based on the principle of the scanimation techniques. The purpose of this exercise is to challenge the students to entertain your audience with their work. Scanimation works as follows: (1) A transparent slit sheet (a sheet in a black and white stripe pattern) is put on a composite image created by laying “a few images that represent movements” on top of each other. (2) The slit sheet is moved from side to side in a manner to make the synthesized image look like a series of images made of multiple film frames through the slit sheet. (3) Invisible parts are supplemented by the human brain, and people feel as if they were watching an animation. 2.2

Flip-Books

The students then created flip-books in the next three weeks of a total of 15 weeks (from the fourth week to the sixth week). A flip-book is a work where an array of slightly different pictures are drawn on each page of a special notebook in a way to make the pictures seem to be moving due to the residual effect brought about by turning the pages quickly. This special notebook is composed of 50 pages, with its size being

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60 mm long and 120 mm wide. And the students were required to do stop motion photography of their works, digitize them using Windows Media Player, and submit the digitized data. The students yielded 10-s animations. The purpose of this exercise is to challenge the students to engage your audience with their work (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Student’s work in the flip-book work activities

2.3

Stop Motion Animation

The last nine lessons of the 15-week course (from the seventh week to the fifteenth week) were dedicated to digital storytelling. Digital storytelling here means an activity of producing two to three-minute-long stop motion animation with a well-constructed plot according to the theme that the teacher gave. Stop motion animation is produced by gradually moving static objects and take several pictures for each film frame, editing the pictures as a short video using film editing software, such as Windows Media Player, and adding music and sound effects as needed. The production processes are to (1) sort out problems with the theme and collect materials, (2) establish a story (create storyboards), (3) photograph static images for creating stop motion animation, and (4) edit the pictures for producing a final short video. The students were instructed to take about 4 pictures per one second of their videos to produce an about two-minutelong animation work. This means that they had to finish photographing approximately 500 images in total within a predetermined time frame. The students efficiently took pictures of still images and completed their works based on their respective storyboards that they prepared in advance. It is important to prepare this storyboard before making animations The purpose of this exercise is to challenge students to share their thoughts with your audience. Figure 2 shows the work of one of the students.

Fig. 2. Student’s work in the stop motion animation work activities

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3 Questionnaire Survey After the class, a questionnaire survey was carried out, targeting 43 students who had submitted the above three works. 43 students gave valid answers (Fig. 3). The following questions were asked, in order to grasp the situation of students after this class. • Q1: After this exercise, do you think that you became able to summarize and convey your idea to others? • Q2: After this exercise, do you think that you became able to reconsider your design while developing it and redesign it (to embody your idea)? • Q3: After this exercise, do you think that you became able to plan and engage in something within a limited period of time?

Fig. 3. Questionnaire survey conducted targeting students

Q1 is a question regarding “to convey ideas to others,” and about 79% of students gave positive answers. Q2 are regarding “the abilities to develop ideas and embody them.” For the question, about 93% of students gave positive answers. Q3 is a question about project management. About 84% of students answered these questions positively, “I certainly became able to do so” and “I became able to do so.” These results are reasonable as an introductory course.

4 Conclusions In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey through the digital storytelling exercise as to three skills, which are (1) the ability to express one’s own ideas to others (communication skill), (2) the ability to abstract problems and develop one’s thoughts (computational thinking skill), and (3) the ability to move ahead with tasks in a planned manner (skill to see the big picture of issues). The results of the questionnaire survey carried out after the class have revealed that about 80% or more of the students gave positive feedback in response to some questions, such as “Have you learned how to work on assignments in a planned

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manner?” and “Have you learned how to develop your thoughts?”. Some students considered that they had not acquired satisfactory communication skills yet despite the teachers’ judgment, through observations during class, that their communication skills were acceptable, and one of the interesting results is that they were among those who responded negatively to such questions as the above mentioned ones. This is attributable to these students’ high expectations about the quality of their own animation works, which would accordingly make them assess that their own “communication skill (of delivering their messages) was not satisfactory.” The results of the questionnaire survey, however, have allowed us to get the sense that this education program is feasible as a preliminary education program to run before introducing students to PBL. We conducted this educational process in academic years 2018 as well, and we plan to submit a comprehensive research report on three-year implementation of the program.

References 1. Wing, J.M.: Computational thinking. Commun. ACM 49(3), 33–35 (2006) 2. Kordaki, M., Kakavas, P.: Digital storytelling as an effective framework for the development of computational thinking skills. In: Proceedings of the EDULEARN 2017, pp. 6325–6335 (2017) 3. Takemata, K., Minamide, A., Kodaka A., Yamada, H.: Engineering design education based on the CDIO approach. In: 19th International Conference on Engineering Education, Zagreb, Zadar (Croatia), pp. 759–766 (2015) 4. Bonwell, C.C., Eison, J.A.: Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. JosseyBas, San Francisco (1991) 5. Tsuchiya, Y.: The Global Diffusion of Digital Storytelling: A Cross-Frontier and Transformative Media Practice. Studies in Media and Society, no. 5, pp. 77–84. Nagoya University (2015)

Challenge Based Learning in the 4IR: Results on the Application of the Tec21 Educational Model in an Energetic Efficiency Improvement to a Rustic Industry Juan Manuel Reyna-González1, Alicia Ramírez-Medrano1, and Jorge Membrillo-Hernández1,2(&) 1

Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Departamento de Bioingeniería, Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Ciudad de México, Mexico City, Mexico [email protected] 2 Writing Lab, TecLabs, Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Transferencia de Tecnología, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Ave. Eugenio Garza Sada 2501, 64849 Monterrey, NL, Mexico

Abstract. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is the result of an integration and compound effects of multiple “exponential technologies”, such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology and nanomaterials. The 4IR extends the paradigm of the industrial revolution to a future in which the most familiar exponential technology is the significant increase in the power of the computer and the decrease in the cost of storage. When these exponential digital technologies are combined with other technologies that expand in a similar way (biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence), a convergence called “singularity” is created. The 4IR can also allow technological solutions to the environmental threats that arise from the accumulation of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the massive factories that arise from our first two industrial revolutions. In this article, we report on the results of the application of a challenge based learning teaching technique with students of the Sustainable Development Engineering Program of the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico. The challenge consisted on the application of engineering solutions to the energetic improvement of a rural artisan production factory of Mezcal, a very popular beverage in Mexico. In the first instance, the areas of energy opportunity were evaluated. The students determined that the production of mezcal decreases drastically after a few weeks of operation because the water used in the cooling process, which is in a closed circuit, reaches temperatures above 60 °C in the tank where it condenses the mezcal The cooling system was modified to increase the mixing and increase the heat transfer coefficient. Additionally a home cooling tower was built in atmospheric natural circulation to control the temperature of the cooling water that is stored in the cistern. With these modifications it was possible to maintain the temperature of the cooling water at 22 °C, which increased the production of mezcal, favoring the economic sustainability of the producer, and decreased the amount of firewood used in the kiln, which helps reduce the impact in environmental pollution. The students evaluated the challenge in a positive way, highlighting the importance of having a real and practical challenge. Competencies were evaluated with precise instruments. Our results confirmed that the © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 760–769, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_73

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use of CBL is a novel scheme to acquire competences and cover contents within the programmatic sequences of engineering education. Keywords: Tec21 model Higher education
CBL


Educational innovation
4IR
Sustainability


1 Introduction Potentially, the 4IR can transform society to face the new challenges that are becoming more complex in the world. The scientific and technological fields that have been detected as essential in the 4IR are Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, Biotechnology and Sustainability. Higher education and mainly in engineering must have a space for reflection for the design of the new curricula that form a university career [1]. To face this reality, recently, the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico has launched the Educational Model Tec21, a flexible model in its curriculum that promotes the participation of students in challenging and interactive learning experiences, and ensures the development of solid and comprehensive exit competencies [2, 3]. The Tec21 model is mainly based on the implementation of the Challenge Based Learning (CBL), a didactic technique that provides the real world perspective that learning must involve doing work on a specific problem instead of just reading and describing on a topic of study [4]. This teaching technique has been implemented in a first approach at the ITESM since 2015, where each campus had a week of challenges, called i-week, in which all students participate simultaneously in activities that promote learning and enrichment of graduation competencies (disciplinary), as well as transversal competences [3]. During the i-week, students are guided by teachers and supported by educational partners, who contribute not only to the design and execution of the activities, but also to the feedback received by teachers and students at the end of the process [5, 6]. The objective of this study is to put into practice the new educational model Tec21 (i-week) through the educational technique of CBL and evaluate the acquisition of skills and new knowledge of Sustainable Development Engineering (IDS) students exposed to the resolution of a specific challenge. In this case, the challenge consisted in the application of engineering solutions for the energy improvement of a rural artisan production factory of the very popular alcoholic drink Mezcal (a similar type of drink as Tequila), located in Morelos, Mexico (70 km south of Mexico City). Mezcal is a traditional alcoholic beverage obtained by distillation and rectification of broths that are prepared directly by fermenting the sugars contained in the juices extracted from the mature hearts (pineapples) of agaves [7]. These mature “pineapples” are hydrolyzed previously and the extracts are subjected to alcoholic fermentation with yeasts [7]. The Mexican norm NOM-070-SCFI-1994 [8] regulates the production of mezcal and implies the denomination of origin, which limits production to nine Mexican states: Oaxaca, Durango, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Puebla, Michoacán and Tamaulipas. Other states, such as Morelos, are in the legal process to obtain the denomination of origin to label their products as mezcal. In general, the mezcal process consists of four stages: (1) cooking agave hearts, (2) grinding cooked

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agave, (3) fermenting juice and cooked agave fibers and (4) distilling fermented agave musts [9]. In this last stage is where some artisan producers face some problems, since they cannot control the temperature of the cooling water. Therefore, the challenge focused on this section of the process to overcome this problem.

2 Methods 2.1

Academic Settings and Study Population

The place of study was the Don José mezcalería, located in Palpan de Baranda, in the state of Morelos (70 km south of Mexico City). The challenge involved 11 students from the Engineering in Sustainable Development program (IDS), 5 men and 6 women, who were studying between the sixth and ninth semester, in an age range of 20 to 22 years. 2.2

Deliverables and Evaluation

At the end of the i-week exercise, students submitted 2 engineering proposals to streamline the mezcal production process. The first consisted of proposing a modification to the design of the condensation tank of the mezcal to improve favoring the agitation and the transfer of energy between the cooling water and the condensed mezcal. With the new design, it is expected to control the temperature of the cooling water and avoid reaching the high temperatures, (around 60 °C), reported by the producer in 2018. The second proposal was to build a cooling tower open to backflow of natural circulation. With this tower it is intended to cool a little more the cooling water that comes from the process and is stored in a cistern, before recirculating. The evaluation was divided into three sections, the first two were designed so that the teacher and the training partner (in this case the staff of the distillery) evaluated the disciplinary competence, and the last one was designed to evaluate a transversal competence (collaborative work), evaluated by the same students. Disciplinary competence to evaluate: The student analyzes and proposes alternative solutions to problems related to the areas of energy, efficient use of materials and sustainable use of natural resources. (a) Evaluation instrument: Presentation rubric Evidence of performance: Each team will present its proposal to the professor, who will be the evaluator and he will give them a feedback at the end of each presentation. Evidence of performance: Each team will present its proposal to the training partner and/or guest evaluator, who will give them feedback at the end of the presentation. (b) Evaluation instrument: Presentation rubric that includes the prototype. Evaluation date: Fifth day of the week. Evidence of performance: Each team will present its proposal to the training partner and/or guest evaluator, who will give them feedback at the end of the presentation.

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(c) Transversal competence to evaluate: Collaborative work. Evidence of performance: Each member of each team will evaluate their teammates Evaluation instrument: Observation guide. Co-evaluation Evaluation date: Fifth day of the week. 2.3

Indicators

An anonymous student opinion survey (ECOA) was made to detect potential differences between the different groups of students. These ECOAs are applied in two moments, after the fourth week of instruction and at the end of the course (after week 15). In addition to this, an additional survey was held on what most pleased the students and what they liked least.

3 Results 3.1

Sustainable Development Engineering of the Challenge

The process of obtaining the “Artisanal mezcal” category consists basically of 4 stages (Fig. 1): cooking the heart of the agave by direct fire, grinding the cooked agave by hand, stone wheel or mechanical shredder, fermenting in vats (stainless steel in not allowed) and distilling the fermented liquid in copper or clay stills, with monteras (caps) made of wood, cooper, clay or stainless steel to separate the produced alcohol (mezcal). It is in this last stage where the areas of opportunity to improve mezcal production in Don José’s mezcalería were detected. The fermented liquid and the fiber of the agave is introduced into a copper still placed on an oven whose fuel is logs. The still is thermally insulated from the sides and the montera is placed on top. The heating of the fermented liquid causes the ethanol to transform into steam and is conducted to the montera, and then to a heat exchanger through a copper coil, which is submerged in a tank with cooling water to condense the steam of ethanol. The mezcal is distilled again in a similar system. The cooling water is in a closed system, comes from a cistern and first comes into contact with the copper cap to start the condensation of mezcal, and then it is conducted to the tank containing the coil, to continue condensing and obtain the mezcal distilled. The greater the temperature difference between the steam and the cooling water, the more energy can be transferred and the greater production of distillate will be obtained. The main problem that was detected in the heat exchanger is that the cooling water reached a temperature close to 40 °C in a single day of operation. According to the producer, the temperature of the cooling water reached 60 °C in the last weeks of operation. The length of time of the production process in this mix is three and a half months, operating 24 h a day, so the efficiency in the condensation of mezcal in 2018 decreased significantly, impacting the production of mezcal. The cooling water temperature reaches high values because the heat transfer is not eased by agitation and turbulent flow of the fluid. Therefore, the rate of heat transfer by natural convection between the external surface of the coil and the surrounding cooling water is very important, which leads to a low individual heat transfer coefficient outside the tube.

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In addition, the same cooling water that was heated in the cap when the mezcal started to condense, was fed into the condensation tank to cool the mezcal circulating inside the coil (Fig. 2A). The proposal made to the producer at the end of the i-week was implemented in his mezcalería during the following months, consisted in separating the cooling water in two independent streams (Fig. 2B). The first stream comes from the cistern to the cap to start the condensation of the mezcal vapor, but it is no longer fed to the tank, it is rather sent directly to a storage tank. The second stream of cooling water coming from the cistern is fed directly to the condensation tank, the hose was introduced in a spiral, the closest to the coil, and the section that was submerged in the water of the tank was drilled with three holes every 10 cm, this in order to favor mixing and increase the heat transfer coefficient outside the coil. The outlet of the hose inside the tank was sealed to increase the speed of the water coming out of the holes. The water that leaves the condensation tank is mixed with the water that comes from the cap in the storage tank.

Fig. 1. Mezcal production at Palpan de Baranda, Morelos, Mexico. (A) Cooking, (B) Milling, (C) Fermentation, (D) Distillation.

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The Proposed Solution

To achieve a greater reduction in the temperature of the cooling water, an open cooling tower (Fig. 3) was built and installed between the storage tank and the cistern. The dimensions were of a base of 1 m  1 m, and 3.5 m of height, with 6 trays. The cooling water is sent from the storage tank to the cooling tower by means of a pump, and the water is distributed in the tower by 4 sprinklers. A bed of 15 cm volcanic stones was installed in each tray to help reduce the temperature of the cooling water.

Fig. 2. Heat exchanger before (A) and after (B) modifications.

3.3

Objective Learning Outcomes

Table 1 shows the objective learning outcomes. The average grades of the evaluations are shown. Very high marks were given to students in both, transversal and disciplinary competences (19.4 and 18.3 out of 20), as the proposed solution actually gave excellent results after the challenge based learning experience, maximum points were awarded for oral and written final presentation of the data. Consequently the final grade was also very high. 3.4

Satisfaction Surveys

An anonymous student opinion survey (ECOA) was made to detect the degree of satisfaction of this experience by the students. It can be observed that practically in all

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areas high marks are obtained, highlighting the questions about the perception of the student whether or not he/she has being able to contribute to promote a value towards the community (9.57/10). This means that the student is considered to have sufficient knowledge to be able to provide proposals for solutions to real problems. The i-week associated with this type of challenges allows the student to gain more confidence in himself, because it gives him the possibility to investigate, participate in the discussion with his colleagues with the knowledge he bears, analyze and propose alternative solutions that are evaluated by the training partners. He no longer receives direct information from the professor, he is in charge and responsible for generating his own knowledge. Hence, he perceives this challenge as something different from his classes (9.14/10) and considers that his attitude plays a very important role in the result of the activity and learning acquired (9.43/10), and that he can apply it in a different situation (9.5/10). Interestingly, all data were very consistent and the SD of the values was lower than 20%.

Fig. 3. The cooling tower

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4 Discussion Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a key model for engineering education, in the case described here, sustainable development engineering is a newly created area that arises from the development requirement of many companies that need to implement solutions with new ideas that come directly from the academy [4]. Students must be exposed to new course materials in order to solve real-life problems and teachers must be prepared to learn the most advanced tools to implement innovative solutions [10]. This method was developed with the purpose of improving the ability of engineering students to solve new problems and transfer knowledge from one context to another. CBL is a pedagogical technique that has been incorporated into areas of study such as science and engineering, and requires a real-world perspective because it suggests that learning involves doing or acting the student in a subject of study [11]. CBL forces students to be reflective and flexible thinkers who can use the knowledge acquired to take action. Therefore, CBL awakens student interest by giving practical meaning to education, while developing key skills such as collaborative and multidisciplinary work, decision making, advanced communications, ethics and leadership [4]. The Tecnologico de Monterrey will implement, as early as next year, institutional education programs based on challenges for all careers, which implies a great challenge for both teachers and students. The i-week here described is a good example of acquiring competencies through the experience and active learning [2, 3]. Table 1. Descriptive statistics for grades in i-week (N = 11 students)

Mean Median Standard Deviation Maximum Minimum

Transversal competence (Collaborative work) Max = 20 19.4 20 0.92

Disciplinary Competence (Oral presentation 1) Max = 20 18.3 18 0.90

Disciplinary Competence (Oral presentation 2 and written report) Max = 60 60 60 0.0

Final grade Max = 100

20 18

20 17

60 60

100 96

97.6 98 1.43

Taking into account the students proposals after the CBL experience, it was clear that the modifications made to the heat exchanger and with the installation of the cooling tower, it was possible to maintain the temperature of the cooling water inside the condensation tank at 22 °C during the following three and a half months of operation of the mezcalería. The cooling tower helped to lower the temperature of the cooling water by 6 °C, so the greatest impact was generated in the condensation process. The control of the temperature of the cooling water helped to increase the production of mezcal by 10 L/day, which led to a production of this season 2019 of approximately 11.5 m3 of mezcal, 1.0 m3 more than that produced in 2018. In addition, the load of firewood decreased, so the environmental impact of the process was

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reduced. These results show that the goal of solving the challenge was met, energy efficiency was improved remarkably in the distillation process of mezcal, helping producer and training partner Don José to obtain a greater quantity of its product. The fundamental piece in the new model of Tecnológico de Monterrey based on challenges is the development of competences, and students perceive that i-week is an activity that helps them develop certain disciplinary and transversal competences (86% of positive answer in the survey). Finally, the degree of satisfaction that the students had when participating in this CBL exercise called i-week was high (4.14/5), when they were asked about their experience and whether or not they would recommend it to other classmates, the answer was very positive (4.14/5). Some of the most notable comments made by the students in this survey were: “You make an efficient and real redesign of what mezcal producers really need in Morelos, the approach is magnificent, it makes you feel more involved”, “It’s something that you have to experience as an IDS student”, “A different and challenging experience”, “There is nothing better than practical work to show when you learn”. Our results support the proposal that this type of CBL experience is necessary for the new engineering curriculum of the 4IR [1], which will guarantee a comprehensive education, since more than any particular content area, the curriculum needs to help students to develop their capacity, for ethical reasoning, to know the social and human impacts and to understand the impacts of 4IR. Today we need subjects in the curriculum that explore new strategies to achieve the objectives of Sustainable Development, and increase the skills of the engineers of the future to face them. Acknowledgements. The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Writing Lab, TecLabs and Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico in the production of this work.

References 1. Kim, J.: The Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and the Future of Higher Education. Inside Higher Education, 10 July 2017. https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-andlearning/fourth-industrial-revolution-and-future-higher-ed 2. Free Document. https://observatory.itesm.mx/Tec21/ Accessed 13 Aug 2018 3. ITESM: Strategic Plan 2020. http://sitios.itesm.mx/webtools/planestrategico2020/publico/ EN/index.html. Accessed 13 Jan 2019 4. Swinden, C.L.: Effects of challenge based learning on student motivation and achievement. MSc Thesis University of Montana (2013). http://scholarworks.mo 5. Membrillo-Hernández, J., Ramírez-Cadena, M.J., Caballero-Valdés, C., Ganem-Corvera, R., Bustamante-Bello, R., Benjamín-Ordoñez, J.A., Elizalde-Siller, H.: Challenge based learning: the case of sustainable development engineering at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City Campus. In: Auer, M., Guralnick, D., Simonics, I. (eds.) Teaching and Learning in a Digital World, ICL 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 715. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73210-7_103 6. Membrillo-Hernández, J., Ramírez-Cadena, M.J., Caballero-Valdés, C., Ganem-Corvera, R., Bustamante-Bello, R., Benjamín-Ordoñez, J.A., Elizalde-Siller, H.: Challenge based learning: the case of sustainable development engineering at the Tecnologico de Monterrey. Int. J. Eng. Ped. 1, 137–144 (2018). https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v8i3.8007

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7. Robles-González, V., Galíndez-Mayer, J., Rinderknecht-Seijas, N., Poggi-Varaldoc, H.M.: Treatment of mezcal vinasses: a review. J. Biotechnol. 157, 524–546 (2012) 8. http://www.colpos.mx/bancodenormas/noficiales/NOM-070-SCFI-1994.PDF 9. http://www.crm.org.mx/ 10. Ribeiro, L.R.C., Mizukami, M.D.G.N.: Problem-based learning: a student evaluation of an implementation in postgraduate engineering education. Eur. J. Eng. Educ. 30, 137–149. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03043790512331313796 11. Membrillo-Hernández, J., Ramírez-Cadena, M.J., Martínez-Acosta, M., Cruz-Gómez, E., Muñoz-Díaz, E., Elizalde, H.: Challenge based learning: the importance of world-leading companies as training partners. Int. J. Interact. Des. Manuf. (2019, in press). https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s12008-019-00569-4

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in Engineering Education in Sri Lanka: A Moodle Based Approach Anuradha Peramunugamage1(&), Hakim A. Usoof1(&), W. Priyan S. Dias2(&), and Rangika U. Halwatura2(&) 1

University of Colombo School of Computing, Colombo, Sri Lanka [email protected], [email protected] 2 University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka {priyan,rangikau}@uom.lk

Abstract. This paper describes how a Moodle-based PBL educational model was integrated into the first year of a Bachelor of Engineering course in Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. To determine the perceptions of students regarding a PBL application prepared in a Moodle environment, a survey questionnaire was prepared. Students’ submission rates and students’ discussions were monitored through Moodle log records. Learner’s feedback on PBL activities, experience in Moodle, perspective on group discussion and its effectiveness were collected through the structured questionnaire and group interviews. Designing an online PBL environment in Moodle helps to popularize the Learning Management System (LMS) among teachers and students engaged in engineering and it will contribute an online PBL model to develop Moodle Web and Moodle Mobile support for PBL. Keywords: Engineering education learning


Problem-Based Learning
Web-based

1 Introduction Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach that can fit into different teaching styles (Shimic and Jevremovic 2012; Barrett 2017b). It is a student-centered instructional model in which the learner engages in different capacities to achieve his learning outcomes through exploring solutions for problems. PBL is most appropriate for process-oriented courses that require collaboration, research and problem-solving. Barrows (1996) identifies six core features of PBL (Newman 2003; Savin-Baden 2014) as follows: – – – –

learning is student-centered, learning is best accomplished with small groups, the problem is the main stimulus for learning, problems are the vehicle for the development and acquisition of problem-solving skills, – teachers are primarily facilitators of learning, and new information is acquired through self-directed learning. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 770–780, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_74

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In today’s technology-driven world the teacher is no longer the primary source of knowledge, and now the teacher’s main role is to facilitate learning. In this context, PBL provides opportunities for teachers to work as facilitators to achieve specific learning outcomes. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in the primary and secondary levels serve as the foundation for engineering education at the tertiary level. Engineering is a creative field. Engineers design devices, components, subsystems, and systems. To create successful designs, in the sense that they would lead directly or indirectly to an improvement in the quality of life, the engineer must work within the constraints imposed by technical, economic, business, political, social, and ethical issues (Woods et al. 2000; Clive et al. 2005; Brophy et al. 2008; Rajala 2012). Therefore, accreditation bodies governing engineering education are mainly focused on student-centered education for engineering (International Engineering Alliance 2018; Guzdial et al. 2001). Previous studies have shown that practically all students own at least one smart device, such as smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer (Peramunugamage and Halwatura 2017; Peramunugamage et al. 2019). Students use these devices to browse the Internet, connect with social media, check email, etc. Therefore, this research looks at how we could exploit their familiarity with these devices for achieving educational goals. In this research, we have tried to create a Problem Based Learning (PBL) environment for the use of engineering students through Moodle. This study addresses an important gap in engineering education research since the majority of PBL studies focus on the medical or military educational domain. In this research, we have performed interventions using the Moodle virtual learning environment by implementing PBL in an engineering education context. Moodle provides the means to access learning materials online as well as allowing students to interact with their peers and teachers (Browne et al. 2010; Ali et al. 2015). In this study, PBL was applied to a process-oriented civil engineering course using Moodle. The significance of this study is that it supports teachers to transform teacher-centered education to student-centered education through being a facilitator in a PBL setting. Consequently, students are provided with the opportunity to transform from passive learners to active learners.

2 Literature Review Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (MOODLE) is a virtual learning environment (VLE), which was developed to support teachers to share course information and communicate among students where the learning process is completed online, representing a software open source. It is a course centric learning environment and improves both the self-paced and the instructor-led learning processes. Unfortunately, it does not support PBL. Since it designed to be domain independent, with a rich palette of administration functionalities which focused on delivering reusable, wellstructured learning content. Therefore, it is usually the declarative knowledge of the individual learner. Therefore, different studies were conducted to combine PBL with LMSs. Moreover, Different domains need different approaches when designing a PBL environment (Shimica and Jevremovic 2012). Researches have introduced various webbased PBL environments (Ali et al. 2015; Mtebe and Kondoro 2016). Sancho (2011)

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developed a web-based Moodle plugin called Nucleo and tested two courses with physics faculty, one in economics faculty one in the politics and sociology faculty and 13 in the educational faculty courses at the Complutense University of Madrid. However, it has not tested with courses which need more field studies and focused on teamwork activities. It was a successful plugin (Sancho et al. 2011a). ePBL also another “fixed-model” PBL implemented in Moodle (Ali and Samaka 2013). Ali et al. (2015) studied on four PBL model including ePBL and Nucleo which has used only for web-based course activities. Shimica and Jevremovic (2012) developed a complete Moodle plugin called (PBL lesson plan) that support the design and delivery of PBL sessions or PBL lesson plans for medical students with different view privilege for both teacher and student. A key element in online courses is providing effective communication and interaction. A variety of formats are available for online interaction, and many have been used to supplement face-to-face courses for the past several years. However, research needs to be conducted to determine which format provides the highest level of interaction and the most effective learning experiences for various kinds of students. In addition, studies need to show which format best fits a particular pedagogy used by instructors. Therefore, this case study focused on how a Moodle-based PBL educational model was integrated into the first year of a Bachelor of Engineering course in Civil Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka?

3 Methodology The participants of this study were 128 students of the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa (UoM), Sri Lanka. The study was conducted on the Building Design Process and Application (BDPA) course offered in semester 2 of the 1st year of the engineering degree programme. None of the students had prior experience in PBL. However, they had experienced Moodle activities during semester 1. The UoM has an annual intake of 850 students for its undergraduate engineering degree programme. During the first semester, all students have to take six compulsory modules. Based on their performance in the first semester students are allowed to select their specialization subject and from the second semester onwards, students focus on their field of specialization. It lasts 14 weeks and involves a 1-hour face-to-face lecture session and a 3-hour practical session per week, during which students work in small groups to complete a laboratory assignment and discuss tutorial problems. The course plan is described in Table 1. In 2017, 128 students were selected for Civil Engineering specialization and all of them were enrolled for the BDPA course. A Moodle course was set up for the students and they had to participate in the course activities earnestly to achieve the course objectives. After completing the BDPA module, the students are expected to be able to appreciate the roles of the different professionals in the design team, to apply building regulations to residential, commercial and public buildings, to apply basic building planning concepts and building elements by understanding the properties of materials and structures and also to prepare building drawings using computer-aided design tools. Real world problems were given to them and they were asked to find solutions.

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No technology costs were incurred since Moodle was already set up at the university and was being used by the researcher and the teacher in charge of the course. During a previous study, the students had expressed their preference to have video recordings of the face-to-face lectures (Newman 2003). Therefore, all the lectures were video recorded and uploaded weekly on to the Moodle environment as learning resources though it was not directly relevant to PBL. The BDPA Moodle page consisted of subject content, such as lecture notes, videos, tutorials and practice questions, and also used to send notices to students (with immediate notification to students via email). This allowed students to make group submissions, engage in group discussions and access the online journal as shown in Table 1 to support PBL activities. All lecture materials, tutorial problems and an assignment were uploaded on to Moodle at regular intervals; in addition, discussion forums on three open-ended questions were created to promote creative thinking and collaborative learning of students. Since the BDPA course was designed for PBL, during the first lesson, students were assigned to groups in Moodle. Discussion boards and blogs were available for students to participate in open discussions any time, either as a group or individually. Moreover, discussion regarding their group assessments and individual assessments were also facilitated via Moodle, in addition to face-to-face sessions with the teacher and instructors. Students were given formative assessments as well as summative assessments. Freehand sketches were done in-class, which had to be submitted for individual formative assessment. The students were introduced to the relevant theories, and they had to apply that knowledge during practical sessions. This was to allow students to enhance their own capabilities at preparing drawings. These individual assignments had to be submitted as both soft copy and as hard copy (a photograph of same) within the allocated time period to the teacher in the class. Hard copy submission confirms the students’ attendance at the lecture and that the teacher has checked both submissions when marking; this is done because some students skip the face to face lectures and try to get by simply through submitting a soft copy. During the 3-h practical sessions students were given facilities and coaching to learn AutoCAD, 3D MAX, Revit architecture, CAD and RC Detailer. An instructor trained the students to gain hands-on experience with these tools during these sessions. Students were given enough time to create their own designs by clarifying any issues with instructors individually or as a group. This allowed students to enhance their creative thinking and problem-solving skills. At the end of the computer laboratory sessions, the intended learning outcome was that the students would be able to design 3D models of various structures. After learning to draw sketches and model 3D structures students were given the opportunity to select a real site plan and design a building after consulting a client. During the first session of the course, students were put into 10 groups consisting of 12 to 13 members in each group for assessment. They were assigned various topics that had to be covered in the module as given in Table 1. From the third week onwards, the groups had to present their assigned topics to the class as a group formative assessment. The students were given one hour to make their presentation. While every student was expected to be ready for the whole presentation, just before the start, the teacher gave the presentation order and all students had to present their material during the allocated time slot to the entire class. However, before the presentation could start, each group had to meet the teacher face to face and prepare the final presentation.

Group 10 Assignment 1- Site visit 02

Final Submission

14

Group 6 Assignment 1-Sustainable design

9

Group 9 Assignment 1- Site visit 01

Group 5 Assignment 1- Roofs & Green roofs

8

13

Three-point perspective

7

12

Two point perspective

6

Group 8 Assignment 1-Flooring and sustainable landscaping

Single point perspective

5

Group 7 Assignment 1-Doors/Windows/staircases

Isometric Projection

4

11

Oblique Projection

3

10

Engineering drawings - First Angle Projection

2

1

Introduction to Building Design Process and Application (BDPA)

1

Week #\Hr

Group Assignment 2- Finalized drawings for approval

Group Assignment 2- Model Making

Computer-aided drafting

Computer-aided drafting

Computer-aided drafting

Computer-aided drafting

Group 4 Assignment 1- Building design process

Group 3 Assignment 1- Building regulations

Group 2 Assignment 1- Walls

Group 1 Assignment 1 - Building foundation

Group Assignment 2: Brief Preparation

2

Table 1. Course plan for Building Design Process and Application module 3

4

Group Assignment 2 - Design Development

Group Assignment 2 - Design Development

Group Assignment 2 - Design Development

Group Assignment 2 - Schematic Design

Engineering drawings - Third Angle Projection

Grouping and brainstorming

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Literature

Problem Analysis

Tutorial

Lectures

Group Studies

Report/DocumentaƟon /PresentaƟon/Model

Problem Solving

Problem Studies

775

Experiments

Fig. 1. Problem-solving aspects involved in the Building Design Process and Application module

In addition, students were allowed to use the Moodle course page for discussion as a group or individually. Teacher, Instructors or peer students can actively participate in the discussion. The teacher sat in the audience and evaluated the knowledge, presentation skills, and group work. Furthermore, group members had to evaluate their peers’ contribution to the entire exercise. The audience had the opportunity to ask questions and clarify issues. The teachers provide subject matter support during class discussions directly or by pointing out the reference. This activity allowed students to learn collaboratively and the teacher became a facilitator. In traditional learning, students receive knowledge presented by the teacher; however, in this course students discover knowledge during the group discussions among the students as well as with the teacher. Students were provided with facilities to share resources among the groups for their creative work and were encouraged to use Google presentations and doodle scheduling in order to facilitate collaboration. These collaborations and content were visible to the teacher. Students were also required to maintain an online journal. As a group formative assessment, each group had to work on a real housing project, starting with the client brief and concluding with the submission of a house plan and a 3D model. This will help students to perform design-oriented work and gain knowledge of the course, thereby improving their skills within the discipline. The building design process and the contents of the group project are organized in advance; the teacher and instructors will guide the students who will be striving to improve their capabilities by doing the project work. Throughout the course, we have tried to implement PBL activities as based on the PBL framework of Barrett (2006) (Barrett 2016, 2017a). After the third-week of the semester, lesson group formation, facilitator allocation and problem definition were completed. To analyze the given problems students need to follow lectures, read books and other literature, hold discussions with senior students, engage in group discussions,

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Teachinglearning activities Resources Activities during Lecture Activities during Tutorials Activities during Lab Sessions

Activities for Assessment

Offline

Moodle based online

Face to face lectures with PowerPoint presentation • Revise the previous lecture • Lecture related questions • Interactive discussions • Illustrate complex problems • Summarize understanding and interactive discussion • Individual/Group in Lab activities • Take-home activities • Interactive discussions • Reflections with Lectures • Individual assignments 10% • In-Class 10% • Group submissions 10% • Final Examination (Closed Book) 70%

Recorded lecture, lecture PowerPoint, additional reading materials Online submissions Discussions

Interactive discussions

• Individual submission 10% • Group submission 10% • Online participation 10%

and perform experiments. As described in Fig. 1, students can gain relevant knowledge from all of these resources. Further, students need to submit a report or documentation, a presentation or even a model as a solution for the given problem.

A – Introduction to the Course

B – Evaluation of the Course

Course Work 75% A

B

50% 25%

Start of the Semester

Group Work

End of the Semester

Fig. 2. Distribution of Building Design Process and Application module coursework

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Figure 2 describes schematically how we design, develop and implement PBL activities for the civil engineering BDPA course in an online environment. It shows that at the beginning of the semester students did not engage in any PBL activities. However, during the course the teacher gradually guided students to move into a PBL environment by arranging both face-to-face as well as web-based group activities. At the end of the semester, students are evaluated for both theoretical and practical knowledge in the final written examination. This carries 70% weight as described in Table 2. Individual submissions, in-class submissions and group submissions are compulsory for both offline and Moodle, and carry 30% weight for final grading of the module.

4 Results and Analysis To determine the perceptions of students on PBL application prepared in a Moodle environment, a survey questionnaire was prepared including altogether eight 5-point Likert scale questions. Students’ submission rates and students’ discussions were monitored through Moodle log records. Learners’ feedback on PBL activities, experience with Moodle, perspectives on group discussions and effectiveness were collected through a structured questionnaire and group interviews. We collected the data on the seventh week of the course. 128 students were registered for the course and the printed questionnaire was distributed to all participating students in the seventh week. Table 3

Table 3. Perception of group activities

I am happy to work in a group I shared the experience with group members I had enough time to hold discussions with group members I learned a lot through group discussions Discussion sessions were very helpful I felt I can do more work independently/individually Group discussions were time-consuming I couldn’t share my views on group activities

–

Strongly disagree % –

Significant importance Index 4.7

–

–

–

4.63

51

14

–

–

4.21

44

51

5

–

–

4.4

37

56

5

2

–

4.28

21

19

19

36

5

3.14

14

28

23

30

5

3.16

9

9

12

54

16

2.42

Strongly agree %

Agree %

Neutral %

Disagree %

70

30

–

37

63

35

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shows the perception on group activities during the 7th week of the course. We have assigned a value of 5 for strongly agree and it ranges in value to 1 for strongly disagree. Mean values for each question and corresponding percentages are displayed in Table 3. Only 43 students answered the questionnaire. In Table 3 questions 1 to 5 indicate a positive perception of group activities by indicating a mean value greater than 4. The last three questions indicated a negative perception of group activities by scoring a mean value of less than 3.5.

5 Discussion Adopting PBL for the Building Design Process and Application module was a difficult task since teachers have to transform the course from traditional teaching method to PBL. Further, adopting PBL using the web-based environment was challenging, as Moodle did not provide direct support for PBL. Hence, Moodle had to be supplemented with other web-based tools. PBL provided students with the opportunity to engage in activities by providing a challenging and motivating experience that imbued them with a sense of accomplishment. It also facilitated long-term retention of knowledge compared to traditional teaching. Furthermore, it allowed students to solve problems individually and collaboratively. Dale, in his Cone of Learning model, suggests that people learn and retain 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what they say, and 90% of what they experience directly or practice doing (Davis and Summers 2015). Therefore, PBL for the BDPA module was designed to provide more hands-on experience by simplifying collaboration with peers. Easier communication with peers encouraged them to speak out what they learned. Moodle helped them to share their working experience with peers and the teacher. Introducing Moodle based PBL for the first-year engineering students allowed them to discover the difference between traditional subject-oriented education and the project-oriented educational model. The results in Table 3 show that the majority of students are happy to work with groups as it assists their learning activities. Further, according to Table 3, the last 3 questions indicated that students had negative perceptions about negative on group discussions. Further, the teacher has given his fullest effort to success this approach and he was very happy with the outcome gained after implementing the course. He said this was his first experience and it was a success. Further, he mentioned that it gave an opportunity to practice it for other courses. Students expressed their real experience in their interview session. Most of them said this was they’re first experienced that they followed a course online/blended manner. Moreover, they were happy with the knowledge gained through PBL activities. Few students said that course activities motivated them to work with groups in other courses too. Video-recorded lectures helped students to learn theory whenever and wherever they wanted. This course helped students to improve group work skills from the first year of their engineering degree program and this will help them to adjust more easily to the changing nature of the workplace. Further, PBL assisted students to learn independently; eventually, these graduates will add value to the workplace by being adaptable to changes and better able to help their companies compete in a global market.

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This paper contributes by proposing an approach that addresses both pedagogical and technical challenges, making it easier for teachers to apply the PBL teaching methodology for their courses by using a tool such as Moodle or Google cloud services. In this method, students actively participate in the course by solving problems set by the teacher. It also allows students to interact with each other and work collaboratively to utilize knowledge better and solve problems. Designing an online PBL environment in Moodle helps to popularize the Learning Management System (LMS) among teachers and students engaged in engineering studies. Acknowledgment. This study was conducted at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. We would like to express our gratitude to all the lecturers, non-academic staff and the students who were involved in the study. We express our special thanks and appreciation to Mr. Sanjaya Sooriyaarachchi, Mr. Shashi N. Amarasinghe, Mr. Waruna Adikariarachchi, Mr. Oshada Akalanka and all CIT studio staff at the University for recording the lectures and uploading to Moodle.

References Ali, Z.F., Al-Dous, K., Samaka, M.: Problem-based learning environments in Moodle: implementation approches. In: IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, EDUCON, 2015-April(March), pp. 868–873 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1109/educon.2015.7096075 Ali, Z., Samaka, M.: EPBL: design and implementation of a problem-based learning environment. In: IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, EDUCON, pp. 1209– 1216 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1109/educon.2013.6530260 Barrett, T.: Understanding problem-based learning 2, April 2016 Barrett, T.: Understanding problem-based learning, April 2006. http://www.nuigalway.ie/celt/ pblbook/ Barrett, T., Barrett, T.: A New Model of Problem-based learning: Inspiring Concepts, Practice Strategies and Case Studies from Higher Education. AISHE, Maynooth (2017) Barrett, T.: Enhancers of Hard Fun in PBL (2017b) Barrows, H.S.: Problem based learning in medicine and beyond: a brief overview. New Dir. Teach. Learn. 68, 3–12 (1996) Brophy, S., et al.: Advancing engineering education in P-12 classrooms. J. Eng. Educ. (July), 369–387 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2008.tb00985.x Browne, T., et al.: UCISA Survey: 2010 Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning for Higher Education in the UK, 15 February 2011 (2010). http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/groups/ssg/surveys. aspx Clive, D., et al.: Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. J. Eng. Educ. (January), 103–120 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1109/emr.2006.1679078 Davis, B., Summers, M.: Applying Dale’s Cone of Experience to increase learning and retention: a study of student learning in a foundational leadership course. In: Engineering Leaders Conference 2014 (2015). https://doi.org/10.5339/qproc.2015.elc2014.6 Guzdial, M., et al.: The challenge of collaborative learning in engineering and math. In: 2001 31st Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, vol. 1, pp. T3B-24–9 (2001). https://doi.org/ 10.1109/fie.2001.963910 International Engineering Alliance 2018 (no date) Washington Accord. http://www.ieagreements. org/accords/washington/. Accessed 1 Aug 2018

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Mtebe, J.S., Kondoro, A.W.: Using mobile Moodle to enhance Moodle LMS accessibility and usage at the University of Dar es Salaam. In: 2016 IST-Africa Conference, IST-Africa 2016, pp. 1–11 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2016.7530649 Newman, M.: A Pilot Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Effectiveness of Problem Based Learning, The Campbell Collaboration Systematic Review Group. University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Learning and Teaching Support Network, Newcastle upon Tyne, p. 77, September 2003. ISBN 0 7017 0158 7 Peramunugamage, A., Halwatura, R.: Current Trends and Patterns of Technology Use in Higher Education. SSRN, December 2013. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2934764 Peramunugamage, A., Ratnayake, H.U.W., Karunanayaka, S.P.: Work-in-progress: development of a framework to foster collaborative learning among engineering students using Moodle mobile app. In: Auer, M., Tsiatsos, T. (eds.) The Challenges of the Digital Transformation in Education, ICL 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 916, pp. 3–13. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11932-4_1 Rajala, S.A.: Beyond 2020: preparing engineers for the future. In: Proceedings of the IEEE 100 (SPL CONTENT), pp. 1376–1383 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2012.2190169 Sancho, P., Torrente, J., Marchiori, E.J., et al.: Enhancing Moodle to support problem based learning. The Nucleo experience. In: 2011 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, EDUCON 2011, pp. 1177–1182 (2011a). https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON.2011.5773296 Savin-Baden, M.: Using problem-based learning: new constellations for the 21 st Century. J. Excell. Coll. Teach. 25(3&4), 1–24 (2014). https://www.moodle.aau.dk/pluginfile.php/ 922752/mod_resource/content/0/savin-baden-ject-3.pdf Shimic, G., Jevremovic, A.: Problem-based learning in formal and informal learning environments. Interact. Learn. Environ. 20(4), 351–367 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1080/ 10494820.2010.486685 Woods, D.R., et al.: The future of engineering education III. Developing critical skills. Chem. Eng. Educ. 34(2), 108–117 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1080/030437900308562

Expanding STEM to the Suggestion of STE-SAL-M; A Cross-curricular Approach to Primary Education Science Teaching and Learning Charilaos Tsichouridis1(&), Marianthi Batsila2(&), and Dennis Vavougios1(&) 1

2

University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece {hatsihour,dvavou}@uth.gr Directorate of Secondary Education, Ministry of Education, Larissa, Greece [email protected]

Abstract. This study aims to explore whether the suggested inter-curricular STE-SAL-M approach can take STEM a step further in science teaching and learning. More specifically, the research looks into the extent to which the suggested STE-SAL-M approach can facilitate science concepts learning, and enhance creativity, attitude and interest in education. What is more, the study aims to investigate whether this approach can raise learners’ awareness towards a holistic view of learning. The study is based on a project method called “being strong-eating healthy-changing your life”. Six schools participated in the research with114 primary school learners altogether. To provide possible answers for the research questions class observations and two focus groups were conducted, one with the teachers and one with the learners. The data received and analyzed with the content analysis method indicate a positive attitude towards STE-SAL-M, which is described as authentic, innovative, linked to real life process and facilitates the understanding of science and all disciplines involved. Keywords: STEM
Science Project-based learning


Innovation
Collaborative learning


1 Introduction The term STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) first appeared in 2001 and is known as an approach that addresses knowledge through a different perspective. It is designed to introduce the Technologies and Engineering Science in the teaching of Mathematics and Physics, all important scientific areas to understand the world better. STEM can be interpreted as a “holistic approach to the curricula and instructional guidelines, content and skills, approaching all four disciplines as one without separating them” [1]. Holistic education is defined as “The education which nurtures the broad development of the students and focuses on their intellectual, emotional, social, physical, creative or intuitive, aesthetic and spiritual potentials [2]. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 781–792, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_75

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Within this holistic framework, STEM’s primary objective is to cultivate students’ critical thinking and develop skills to solve various problems in order to understand the world around them. Students learn natural sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics in a fun and appealing way, as emphasis is placed on the experimental part so students can understand the laws of nature. STEM education and training is realized from kindergarten to higher education and its main purpose is to prepare students for the contemporary life needs, through life skills development and knowledge acquisition from real situations. The basic prerequisite is active learning through a student centered environment where students learn to investigate and reach solutions with the teacher being a facilitator and a guide rather than a provider of knowledge. STEM has been found to provide opportunities for skills development and encourage learners to be scientists themselves, doing their own research, answering questions and engaging in playful activities on science, mathematics, engineering and technology. One of the basic elements of STEM methodology is problem solving, as learners seek solutions to everyday issues while being introduced to science through experiential tasks that involve them actively in the process. Students learn to build and design constructions or robots, keeping up-to-date with the current and latest technological developments. They practice engineering as they are called to understand simple and complex machines and/or apparatuses and their function, thus becoming aware of their everyday usefulness. Through STEM, students practice mathematics, which becomes more attractive to them as part of experiential learning, through a variety of activities that teach them to think algorithmically. In other words, STEM is an interdisciplinary or inter-curricular approach to learning, involving all four subjects together, making learning meaningful. It removes the boundaries between disciplines, looking at them as a “whole”, based on the belief that contemporary problems are too compound and multidimensional to be addressed just by one science, and therefore the use of a combination of all four (STEM) is suggested to find a solution. An “interdisciplinary” or “cross-curricular” approach to learning can be defined as the multi-faceted exploration of a subject from a variety of different scientific cognitive fields in such a way that together with specific knowledge gained on a subject, learners can also understand the connection between sciences and their contribution to all aspects of everyday life [3]. To this end, education of the 21st century seeks a multidimensional approach to learning to meet the challenges of today aiming to link knowledge to real life tasks [4]. What is more, education of today aims at an approach where students apply the four disciplines in a way that connects schools with communities, and labor activities [5]. STEM education promotes a learning environment through which students acquire not only skills of the 21st century but also have the opportunity to create new skills [6]. Based on this, [7] some of the basic outcomes of STEM training were highlighted. As it is claimed, individuals who will complete a STEM training will be: problem-solvers as they are able to determine the questions and problems to design surveys for the collection and organization of data, to draw conclusions, and then to apply the conclusions to new situations; innovators, as they use creatively the concepts and principles of Mathematics, Science and Technology by applying them to mechanical design; selfreliant as they are able to take initiatives and set up internal incentives to define an action agenda within defined timeframes; logical thinkers, because they are able to apply reasonable thinking processes of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Design

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for innovation and invention; technologically literate, because they are able to understand and explain the nature of technology, develop the skills required, and apply the technology appropriately [7]. STEM may be approached as a philosophy towards learning and in this sense it is defined as the dynamic process aiming at the transition from STEM education philosophy to the ability to use STEM literacy for lifelong learning in various studies [8]. To this end, disciplines, such as art have turned STEM into STEAM based on the fact that in the real world, art too often complements science, thus offering a more creative tool for both science development and educational aims exploitation [9]. “Creativity” is defined as the ability to produce a new work or idea based on imagination. With appropriate practice and education, creative thinking can be increased. Language has also been discussed as a significant discipline to support the STEM education [10] and a strong social studies STEM curriculum is believed to heighten the academic rigor and relevance to the curriculum [11], whereas student STEM outcomes are dependent on the characteristics of the social settings in which students are situated [12]. Given the importance of the aforementioned cross-curricular perspective of the STEM approach to education could more disciplines fit in the STEM-STEAM already known learning models?

2 Rationale of the Research Education is undoubtedly a complex and dynamic process involving a vast number of practices and stakeholders to reach the educational goals set. Educational decisions are most likely based on both experience and innovation aiming to bring about new tools and knowledge paths that will allow educators to successfully fulfil their teaching aims. STEM has been found to be a learning environment where learners have the ability to explore, discover and apply knowledge based on real life tasks. STEM education implements a connection between sciences and constitutes a bridge between school and everyday life as students become involved in activities which develop their cooperative skills and exploit their pre-existing experiences. This connection was discussed a lot earlier and it was claimed that we do not have a series of separate worlds, from which one of them is mathematical, another one is physical or another one is historic for instance but we live in a world where everything is connected, all studies derive from our connection to the needs of one common world, and therefore, learning should not be divided and fragmented but offered as united and consolidated set of knowledge [13]. Research has revealed that the combination of disciplines such as language and technology [14, 15], or physics and technology [16] for instance, has had effective results in the learning process [16]. Keeping the aforementioned in mind, and if we accept that knowledge is considered the outcome of a holistic approach to education, how limited could this approach be in relation to subjects involved? Is it not the result of a hard multi-task process to be successful in pursuing one’s goals? And if this is the case, how far can social and linguistic perspectives fit in the so-called positivist perspective of science? Given the above then, to what extent is there any room for the social and linguistic aspects of knowledge to science teaching and learning? Could an extended combination of STEM be an effective approach to science learning and to what extent can it

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lead to student motivation, creativity, participation and self-awareness towards a holistic approach to knowledge? Based on the above concerns the authors of this paper decided to look into the extent to which STEM, by expanding it into a STE-SAL-M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Social studies, Art, Language and Mathematics) approach can improve science learning and enhance learners’ interest, creativity, participation and attitude towards learning by adding language, the social aspect of knowledge and art to the STEM model. However, the actual motive for this research derived from a discussion that took place with teachers after they had been trained on the importance of an inter-curricular approach and the issue of creativity for education, based on the STEM philosophy. Thus, upon completion of the training, there was a conversation with the teachers who were positive about the implementation of a project based on the philosophy of STEM and suggested the insertion of more disciplines (social studies, art and language) to see the interaction with the other four STEM subjects and the extent to which they can enhance science learning and learner creativity. Various topics were suggested like the creation of a healthy school/snack/menu or a soap making process for instance, which were implemented by some of the teachers in their schools. However, in this paper it was decided to discuss the topic of bread making process which was agreed by six teachers in the group.

3 Research Methodology 3.1

Purpose of the Research and Research Questions

The main research interest was to explore the extent to which a STE-SAL-M intercurricular suggested approach to learning can be implemented in action, the impact it has on the involved disciplines (science, technology, engineering, social aspects, art, language and math) and the extent to which it facilitates their understanding (though not quantitatively at this point) and especially science concepts understanding. Additionally, the aim was to detect its ability to enhance learners’ attitude, interest in learning and creativity. To this end, the research questions were the following: a. To what extent can the combination of the STE-SAL-M disciplines on a project-based inter-curricular approach enhance learners’ attitude, participation, creativity and interest towards learning? b. To what extent can STE-SAL-M facilitate science concepts learning? 3.2

Research Participants

For the purposes of the present study, a number of 114 sixth grade Primary School learners, aged 12 implemented their STE-SAL-M project as part of their school activities. For the purposes of the research collection data the six teachers and 15 randomly selected learners participated in focus group discussions. Their participation was voluntary and was realized after permission had been given by all stakeholders (principals, parents and teachers themselves). All participants were informed that they

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could withdraw from the discussions anytime they wished, they were reassured of their anonymity and that the data received would serve only for the purposes of the research. Teachers were also explained that they could have a copy of the focus group discussions content upon completion of the research. 3.3

Research Intervention Method Design

The integration of STEM in the educational process requires the use of appropriate teaching methods such as inquiry Based Learning (IBL), Project Method or Problem Based Learning (PBL) These methods have the following common features: They lead students to think critically, to innovate and invent solutions to the problems they face in their daily lives; Students have the opportunity to work together and apply anything has been designed in a real environment; Students are given the opportunity to present their work to classmates, teachers and society in general [17]. 3.4

Project Method

The project method has its roots in the discovery method based learning, with the only difference that it focuses on team project work and on the discovery of a solution to real problems [18]. In STEM training, the project method can be used both as a way to encourage students and as a means of presenting and explaining the content. The theoretical framework of the project method is based on experimental and constructivist learning theories. There are several models of the project method, but their common elements can be summarized in the following [19]: Introduction, the main purpose of which is to activate and create incentives to the students; defining the learning project, as this step determines the purpose and the content of the project to be achieved; investigation procedure which is the research process that includes all the necessary steps for its successful implementation; suggested resources that will be used for the project; teachers’ support that refer to teacher-learner cooperation, teacher-school cooperation, teacher-community cooperation, reflection opportunities. The advantages of project method are the opportunities it offers for peer cooperation, the ability to enhance learning interest, to create internal motives, to enhance active and selfregulated learning in specific contexts, to promote socially structured learning through structured interactions and collaboration for a specific task, to promote creative problem solving and curiosity [19]. 3.5

Research Method and Research Tools

The study employed a mixed method evaluation approach conducting a focus group with the students’ six teachers, a focus group with 15 randomly selected students, class observations and note-taking. The researchers were present during the implementation phase in order to have a more detailed perception of the research process, observing the learners to shed more light into the research issues. The focus group discussions were analysed with the content analysis method.

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Research Process and Stages

The study, which lasted for three weeks, was based on a short project titled “Being strong-eating healthy-changing your life” and it was decided based on the need to raise students’ awareness towards a healthier life and homemade food. The project target was the creation of a homemade bread and involved the disciplines of “Science” with activities linked to food substances (i.e., flour, seeds, salt) and balanced diet processes, “Technology” with tasks on food products development, safe practices for carrying, preparing and storing food, searching internet tools, software use, “Engineering” with cookery parts assembling methods tasks and constructions (i.e. stove, bread making equipment, levers), “Mathematics” with students being involved in the collection and organization of research data, temperature, time, calories, litres or gram measurements, “Language” with students exploring their literature review searching skills, English language skills, translation skills, writing, speaking, reading and listening skills in both their mother tongues and English, “Social studies” with learners working on their communication skills for their project presentation to school and “Art” with tasks that involved bread creations, paper posters making and creative design skills. The study was implemented in five stages. Before the actual intervention students were asked to take a pre-intervention open ended items questionnaire to detect their background knowledge on bread making process and basic concepts (i.e. kneading, yeast, gluten, calories, fibre, protein, gravity, saturation index, analogy, etc.). Upon completion of the intervention the learners were asked to answer again the same questionnaire to detect any differentiation in their answers. Table 1 displays the phases of the research: Table 1. Research phases Phases

Duration

Place of research At school

1st phase

3h

2nd phase

2 weeks

In and out of school

3rd phase

1 day

At school

4th phase

1 day

At school

5th phase

2h

At school

Activities Student briefing on the topic, project design, Pre-test [background pre-intervention knowledge assessment] Briefing on the project steps, student groups of three, visit to a local bakery, search for information on bread making process (in school/family/social environment), recipes and ingredients recording and purchase, dough kneading instructions, preparation of kneading and stirring constructions Activities implementation, dough making, bakery products creations, bread baking in the schools canteens ovens Presentation of bakery products creations in school and groups’ posters creation Intervention evaluation – Post-test [Post intervention knowledge assessment], focus group discussions (teachers’ and learners’)

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4 Results 4.1

Teachers’ Focus Group Discussion

Based on the focus group discussion comments, all disciplines gained additive value by the inter-curricular STE-SAL-M approach. In describing the process, the teachers explained that due to the learners’ cultural diversity (romani, immigrants, refugees, foreigners from other European countries) there was a varied bread making approach and ingredients, thus, expanding the socio cultural aspect of their interaction, leading to better student to student cultural familiarization and personal relationships. Students were so enthusiastic and motivated that there was great brainstorming regarding kneading and mixing apparatuses construction ideas and bread creations. Students became very involved in searching information on the topic and explored family, friends and relatives’ knowledge to use for their bread making process. The teachers admitted that their role was just auxiliary, almost ancillary, by simply guiding learners when needed. They were amazed at how committed learners were in finding information, recording it, looking for relevant bread making concepts interpretation and using their mother tongue and the English language to create in the end their own dictionary of the new concepts and words in the two languages. What is more, they even provided their own interpretation with terms of their own, which although they were not scientifically accurate, they were very close to their scientific sense. What surprised them however, was the fact that their dictionary was based on their experiential procedure and not on formal definitions found in books, thus, revealing that learning by doing is far more effective to understand and retain knowledge than being a passive learner. As the teachers explained, these dictionaries were depicted on posters and were hung on the walls of their classrooms and the school corridors for the dissemination of the project results to the schools communities. The teachers admitted that all disciplines involved in the STE-SAL-M approach enhanced two factors: the possibility for learners’ creativity to augment as the approach enabled them to express themselves through its intercurricular features; the opportunity for learners to realize that the boundaries between sciences are not strictly defined as they learned science for instance without focusing on science per se. Thus, the teachers explained that each one of the seven disciplines of STE-SAL-M separately but also altogether as one unity managed to help students understand the new scientific concepts. To this end, students gained from science learning new concepts related to the substances of the topic they worked on. Technology enhanced their searching skills, to make graphs, to process the information they found, to record their information on word and excel documents. Engineering helped them invent and create their own constructions for stirring the flour and kneading the dough (either manually or with simply made mechanical levers). The social aspect of the project enhanced their interaction with their peers, their families and immediate environment, the cultural exchanges, the communication process in the groups and the creation of stronger bonds among them. Art activated and enhanced learners’ creativity skills by shaping the dough into various objects, animals or shapes and the design and presentation of their posters in an artistic way. Languages helped in the use of terminology, in searching for scientific terms and their meaning, in using the research tools on the internet, in helping them express themselves both orally and in written form, in

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communicating with one another, in transferring their scientific knowledge and disseminating it to others. Math promoted learners’ capability to use the mathematical thinking in physics calculations, analogies, counting, measuring, weighing and so on. Mainly however, science benefited greatly from each one of the involved disciplines of STE-SAL-M: from technology and its applications which were used for the searching and processing of scientific information, from engineering with the creativity depicted by mechanical constructions skills as part of mechanics, from social aspects with the socio-cultural interaction that took place for the dissemination of the concepts, cooperation and cultural creativity to display the various types of bread making, from art with the creative expression of design and construction creations of bread, from language with terminology which was used to understand the concepts, understanding, oral and written expressions of scientific concepts, communication and interaction to talk and write about bread making, and from math to make calculations and reasoning for physics. The teachers also emphasized the effectiveness of the approach to address students’ misconceptions (i.e. temperature, heat) and improve their knowledge in the new concepts which from vague and abstract in their pre-questionnaire turned to specific and understandable in their post-questionnaire answers. The teachers were very unequivocal about how creativity was a great gain for learners. As they explained what made the difference was students’ active involvement in the STE-SAL-M process instead of having to memorize the new knowledge as part of a traditional lesson. Teachers were also very enthusiastic with learners’ remaining knowledge even weeks later, a fact that enhanced their belief for the effectiveness of STE-SAL-M. However, the teachers also discussed some operational or organizational difficulties. As they explained, some of them were cooperation issues among some groups, especially in the beginning due to the multiple ideas of the students which, due to the time limit, were not able to be implemented (i.e. various suggested mechanical constructions for kneading and stirring). Nevertheless, teachers intervened when needed to maintain a constructive and balanced atmosphere. Additionally, the cooperation of the students’ family environment and their satisfaction to see their children value something so simple which they used daily, (i.e. bread), was evident throughout the process as parents shared with the teachers when coming to school. What surprised parents the most was the fact that instead of their children spending time on playing video games, as it was usual for many students, instead, they allocated this time to searching and recording information for their project tasks. 4.2

Students Focus Group Discussion

Based on the students’ focus group discussion comments, the learners enjoyed the process to a great extent. As they revealed they were very excited in getting involved with the way bread making is made, what it means, the recipes involved, the ingredients needed, and the baking process with their peers/teams. What excited them was the fact that bread, which they had in mind as something that only differentiated in shape and type of flour, was so differently made by other cultures, not only in shape, size or taste, but also in ingredients added, ways it is served, baked or used. Many students revealed that the process of thinking how to make a mechanical construction

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for the kneading of the bread was a joyful challenge to them and they admitted that they had shared ideas with their parents or looked for information in the internet. The majority of the learners explained that they discussed with their parents and grandparents about how bread is made, the time it takes to prepare, the materials to use, what to do to make it tasty and even what to do to make it unique! Thus, there seemed to be a “healthy” competition, high motivation and curiosity to know more about the topic. The students admitted that before the project, their scientific knowledge on the topic went as far as the type of flour and that they found it hard to answer the prequestionnaire terms, even in simple words. They argued that they were surprised to see that although bread is integrated in their daily lives as a simple kind of food, never before had they realized how much it can be differentiated with a variation of substances, baking equipment, baking time or baking ideas. Students explained that they enjoyed making their own dictionaries for scientific concepts. Particularly they liked the simultaneous recording of the terms in both their mother tongue and in English and argued that they liked very much the process of creating their own posters to present in their schools. The learners also admitted that the English language was very useful to searching the internet for a variety of new vocabulary but also for kneading apparatuses or baking methods ideas. Some of them enjoyed especially the process of finding more information on the substances of the ingredients, and others particularly the construction of the kneading levers which made them feel like real scientists and/or mechanics! The students however complained about the limited time of the project as they wished more time for the construction of more complex kneading/stirring equipment which they came up as ideas in their groups. They also discussed the difficulty they had to work with some of their peers as they all wanted to implement the different ideas but it was not easy as they only had to present one bakery product per group. The students were proud to announce that they could answer the post questionnaire items a lot better than before and that they had the opportunity to express the new scientific terms or the baking processes the way they had experienced them throughout the project. Some of them even prided themselves in having written more than one page per questionnaire item for some answers, explaining that they had a lot to say now as part of their involvement in the project. They were also happy to say that their parents felt very proud of them and that they were ready to be the “kitchen masters” in the house from now on!

5 Discussion Our knowledge of how people learn has increased significantly over the last decades. We know now that success in learning requires from the student to be in the center of experience, making interconnections among all environmental settings and disciplines. Students should be offered opportunities to learn the same cognitive material from a different perspective. The traditional approach to teaching subjects in isolation does not always support the ways in which students learn better. This is where the educational approach of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) comes along. STEM is really a philosophy and a way of thinking about how teachers at all levels

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should help students integrate knowledge into all disciplines by encouraging them to think in a more holistic way. Students are urged to think deeper, guided to explore, observe, make predictions, and integrate their learning into their daily lives. Lately STEM has been suggested as STEAM with art being one of the disciplines involved for educational purposes. In this research we have tried to take the philosophy of STEM a step further by suggesting STE-SAL-M as an inter-curricular approach with the addition of three disciplines (social aspects, language and art) to support science learning but also for each discipline one by one, to contribute to all the other disciplines in their own way, thus having all subjects being directly interconnected and interrelated with one another. Figure 1 displays a graphical representation of the inter-curricular and interrelation features of the suggested STE-SAL-M approach, as it has been approached and explored in this study:

Fig. 1. Graphical representation of STE-SAL-M

Based on the results of this study, the suggested STE-SAL-M approach has been found to have enhanced learner interest, participation and creativity in the educational process, factors which are crucial to the success of our lessons as educators. As seen in the research, learners got involved in many different scientific fields together but this involvement was not fragmented and though it aimed at one specific goal, the benefits were additive and summative for science learning and education itself. Therefore, it may be argued that, STE-SAL-M with the addition of language, social studies and art has possibly supported and raised students’ awareness towards the inter-curricular and holistic perspective of knowledge and facilitated the science concepts understanding. Based on teachers’ and students’ arguments scientific concepts were clarified and understood a lot more after the intervention not only through the experiential aspect of the approach, but also through the students’ engagement with the rest of the subjects which, one by one contributed to the facilitation of science learning. However, science too had something to offer to all the other subjects and their learning. We would like to point out that this was a first attempt to explore the impact of STE-SAL-M in science

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learning, and to this end it is a pilot study. However, a further investigation will be conducted with a bigger sample and quantitative data to have a deeper understanding of the impact of this approach. We acknowledge that this has been a limitation and weakness of our study. However, we intend to employ a quantitative research method as well in our next research step, which will follow the same procedure but with a different topic, such as soap making. What is more we consider that a possible strength of our research lies on the fact that it highly motivated the learners and facilitated the learning of science concepts through a game-based project which involved all STEM disciplines together but brought into the surface the possibility of adding even more, thus, focusing on the holistic aspect of learning. We also believe that this model can be used with other age groups and levels of education on similar topics and it is our intention to investigate this in the near future. Teaching and learning are a great challenge and a difficult task for almost the majority of the teachers of all levels. Teachers everywhere seem to restlessly need to seek ways to improve their teaching practices for the benefit of their students and themselves. It seems that managing to draw learners’ attention and interest is not an easy task and it takes a lot of effort, imagination, variety and hard work on teachers’ behalf to achieve the goals set. What is more, being able to persuade learners that learning is not a fragmented process and that knowledge is more of a series of bricks used to successfully build the wall of knowledge, then teachers may have managed to reach at least half of their difficult journey.

References 1. Morrison, J., Bartlett, R.: STEM as curriculum. Educ. Week 23, 28–31 (2009) 2. Hare, J.: Holistic education: an interpretation for teachers in the IB programmes. International Baccalaureate Organization (2010) 3. Matsaggouras, I.: Interdisciplinarity in School Knowledge. Grigori, Athens (2012) 4. Parker, J., Lazaros, E.: Addressing STEM concepts through a food safety activity. Sci. Act. 50(3), 84–89 (2013) 5. Tsupros, N., Kohler, R., Hallinen, J.: STEM education: a project to identify the missing components. Intermediate Unit 1 and Carnegie Mellon, Pennsylvania (2002) 6. Narum, J.: Promising practices in undergraduate STEM education. In: Commissioned Paper Presented at NRC Workshop on Evidence on Selected Promising Practices in Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Educatio, Washington, DC (2008) 7. Morrison, J.: TIES STEM Education Monograph Series, Attributes of STEM Education. TIES, Baltimore (2006) 8. Dragogiannis, K.: Factors of Success of STEM Training, Post Graduate Dissertation, Department of Mathematics, Postgraduate Course “Mathematics and contemporary applications”. University of Patras (2017) 9. Schmidt, J.S., Bohn, D.M., Rasmussen, A.J., Sutheland, E.A.: Using food service demonstrations to engage students of all ages in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). J. Food Sci. Educ. 11(2), 46–55 (2012) 10. Curry, M.J., Hanauer, D.I.: Language, Literacy, and Learning in STEM Education: Research Methods and Perspectives From Applied Linguistics. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2014)

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11. Maguth, B.M.: In defense of the social studies: social studies programs in STEM education. Soc. Stud. Res. Pract. 7(2), 65–90 (2012) 12. Xie, Y., Fang, M., Shauman, K.: STEM education. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 41, 331–357 (2015). online publication 13. Dewey, J.: The School and Society and the Child and the Curriculum. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1990) 14. Tsichouridis, Ch., Batsila, M.: The impact of web 2.0 Edmodo tool in junior high school classes: a comparative study. In: International Conference of Interactive Collaborative Learning and Engineering Pedagogy, (ICL), Dubai, 3–6 December 2014, pp. 545–552 (2014) 15. Tsichouridis, Ch., Batsila, M.: The siLang window to interaction - a game-based case study with vocational high school learners. In: International Conference of Interactive Collaborative Learning and Engineering Pedagogy, (ICL), Florence, Italy, 20–24 September 2015, pp. 540–54 (2015) 16. Tsihouridis, Ch., Vavougios, D., Ioannidis, G.: The effectiveness of virtual laboratories as a contemporary teaching tool in the teaching of electric circuits in upper high school as compared to that of real labs. In: Proceedings of 2013 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia, 25–27 September 2013, pp. 816–820. IEEE (2013). ISBN: 978-1-47990152-4/13/$31.00 ©2013 17. Erdogan, N., Stuessy, C.: Examining the role of inclusive STEM schools in the college outcome of student achievement. Educ. Sci.: Theory Pract. 15(6), 1517–1529 (2015) 18. Smith, K.A., Imbrie, P.: Teamwork and Project Management. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Place, New York City (2007) 19. Grant, M.M.: Getting a grip on project-based learning: Theory, cases, and recommendations. Meridian: Middle School Comput. Technol. J. 5(1), 83 (2002)

Poster: Creative, Mental, and Innovation Competences Formation in Engineering Education: Systemic Pattern of Labor Productivity Increase in Industry Lev V. Redin1(&) and Mansur F. Galikhanov2 1

2

Department of Engineering Pedagogy and Psychology, Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russian Federation [email protected] Institute of Additional Professional Education, Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russian Federation [email protected]

Abstract. The actual rule of intellectual property creation, labor productivity increase in contemporary innovative economy is shown. Author’s conception of innovation educational cluster MIMIM (3*MI) should be reliable base for innovation, mental, creative competences formation and development by engineering education. In MIMIM (3*MI) suggest new definition, sense, and content of basic categories “creativity”, “creative thinking”, “strong”, effective solution, “modality of thinking”, and three modalities of thinking – binitarian, triune (poly-unity), quaterian. Keywords: Creativity
Creative thinking productivity
Engineering education


Competence
Innovation
Labor

“Learning without thoughts is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous”. Confucius [1, p. 408].

1 Introduction World economy, principles of world organization very soon will be definite by the results of new knowledge economy and creative, mental, and innovations competences, i.e. by presence of intellectual property rights, intellectual property market development, and ability to choose the most marginality segments of business. In advanced economies the innovation is one of the main drivers of labor productivity and economic growth. Innovations as a result of creative activity and intellectual property (IP) rights creation are gaining the lead position in all kinds of economic/social/cultural/industrial/scientific activity around the world. That is why many companies, countries and different regions fostering labor productivity and

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 793–799, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_76

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economic growth strategies by the conviction that innovation and intellectual property rights should be much important. Actuality of innovation requires the corresponding strategy, aims, direction, and content in education system to actively fostering it. It is very advisable and important to continuously drive and create an innovative, mental and creative culture (competences) in humanitarian, technical, business, justice/law spheres by education system [2, 3]. 1.1

Approach of Research

The project of education methodologization should be includes research of creativity, creative thinking, innovation, competence as categories and phenomenon and design of educational cluster of fostering them. In general research is based on qualitative methodology. Such its elements as deductive (theoretical) method, systemic and metasystemic, logical and historical, integrative (synthesis) and united, dialectic and synergetic approaches are used.

2 Innovation. Intellectual Property Rights Creation. Labor Productivity Integrality it can be considered that innovation is and new science, and new technology, and new industry, and new business, and new markets, and new education, and new management, and new values, and new senses, and new policy, and new strategy, and new goals, and new content, and new…, directing to politic, social, economic, cultural, personal effectiveness on base of new thinking, creativity, and responsibility in all spheres of human activity. The principle of thinking which has such semantic formula as “AND+AND+AND +AND+…” is used in this definition [4]. Labor productivity measures the hourly output of a country’s economy. Specifically, it charts the amount of real gross domestic product (GDP) produced by an hour of labor [5]. Growth in labor productivity is directly attributable to fluctuations in physical capital, science, socio-economic relations, new technology and human capital. If labor productivity is growing, it can be traced back to growth in one of these five areas. Physical capital is the amount of money that companies, people have free and can invest in business, startups. Science is discovery new nature laws, open new patterns from Big Data, and etc. Socio-economic relations are wealth, state and progress process of ethic, ecological, aesthetic principles, such as harmony, trust, tolerance, justice, and etc. New technologies are technological advancements, such as nanotechnology, medical innovations, robots, and assembly lines, and etc. Human capital represents the increase in health, education, qualification and specialization of the workforce. Each of these five areas is interconnected (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1. Semantic formula of interconnected five areas of labor productivity.

Measuring labor productivity allows an economy and society as a whole to understand these underlying trends [6]. Intellectual property rights in global aspects define the real economic situation. In the 21st century knowledge, its understanding, creativity, ability and skills of problem solving are becoming more important and exclusive in an economic sphere, especially since the economic market is becoming more demanding in developing countries. A goal of resolving that situation is to become more innovative, creative, thoughtful,

Fig. 2. Total applications worldwide in 2017 [7, p. 8].

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competence in IP creation and protection. Only companies that will be able to form and develop creative ability of their staff, and to apply creative and innovation thinking in their projects in order to find new approaches to uncertain, multidimensional, and multiple-factor situations will be competitive in the contemporary market (Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Uber, Lyft, new startups, etc.). For this purpose it is necessary to have an innovative educational model, new scientific paradigm, new paradigm of education, new values, new sense, new technology, new thinking – not fundamentalization but methodologization of education. Innovators around the world (Fig. 2) filed 3.17 million patent applications in 2017, representing an eighth consecutive year of growth [7]. World totals of patient applications are World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) estimates covering around 125 National Patient Offices, which include both direct national and regional applications and international applications filed through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) that subsequently entered the national or regional phase. For the first time, in 2011, the total number of patent applications filed worldwide exceeded the two million mark, after passing the 1 million mark in 1995. In particular, according to the information of WIPO in 2014, patent applications filed worldwide amounted to around 2.68 million, up 4.5% from 2013. China’s office received (Fig. 3) a record total of 1.38 million patent applications in 2017, more than double the number of applications received by that of the U.S. (606,956) [7].

Fig. 3. Patient applications for top 10 offices in 2017 [7, p. 13].

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3 Creative, Mental, and Innovation Competences by Engineering Education The project of innovation educational cluster of Mental Integrative Metasystemic (Transdimension) Innovative (Inventive) Methodology (MIMIM) Interactivity (MIMIMI; 3*MI) to formation and develop creative, mental, and innovation competences has been developed by one of the author of this paper in Kazan National Research Technological University (KNRTU, Russian Federation). This methodology was distinguished in the more early paper [4, 8, 9]. The key categories in innovation education cluster MIMIM (3*MI) are “creativity”, “creative thinking”, “strong”, effective solution, and “modality of thinking”. Creativity in educational view – definite quality, promoting the professional, social internal and external development of a person, self-improvement and transformation of a person and his consciousness in cognition (interaction) the higher senses of Universe, by which a person promotes his own activity for obtaining new knowledge, sense, understanding, valuable characteristics, transformation of ideal and material worlds, differing by their own uniqueness, originality, expediency, sensitivity, intelligence, consciousness and which have humanistic, transpersonal and ecological (aesthetical, ethical) orientation and don’t restrain the rights and possibilities of the next, present and previous generations for the object of receiving “strong”, effective solution and creation “possible” through reality. Creative thinking in educational view – psychological (ideal) activity identically to being, including ecologic, aesthetic, ethics principals, psychological aspects (memory, imagine, perception, reflection, instinct, intellect, intuition, conscious, and unconscious part of mind, etc.) to study (abstract and concrete synthesizing) the complex of coordinated cause-effect relations in multidimensional, multiple-factor, recursive continuum of uncertainty, and nonequilibrium on base of contradiction exposure, intensification, and resolve for the object of receiving “strong”, effective solution and creation “possible” through reality. “Strong”, effective solution is consisted in production an optimal, harmonic, selfregulated, self-organized, self-developed, self-consistent system with high level of systemic (integrality, internal self-descriptiveness), which has synergetic, dialectic, recursive, and continual interactions of holistic system with external unity (external self-description) as a result of synchronicity (self-consistency) between the structure and process of thinking and environment in temporal triune of the past, present and prospect (future). Modality of thinking is characterized by the principle of organization (pattern) of thinking, as manifested in its internal condition, contained in a specificity of connected configuration elements making up its structure and method of their operation (internal informativity) and interaction of internal unity with the environment (external informativity), determine the “quality” of thinking result (solution) and is metalogical assessment of thinking according to novelty, reliability, responsibility, and amount of freedom degrees.

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In MIMIM (3*MI) the instrumental level of thinking process is underlined. There are three fundamentally different modalities of thinking – binitarian (linear), triune (poly-unity; nonlinear; integrative recursive continual) and quaternary (harmony; nonlinear; metasystemic integrative recursive continual). Creative, mental, and innovation competences education is based on the temporal and sense integrality and unity of scientific knowledge, spiritual values, arts. Education of such competences formation includes interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and metadisciplinarity, convergence of knowledge and divergence of possibilities. It reinforce interpenetration of natural, technical, social, economic, philosophic, jurisprudential, humanitarian sciences, culture, spiritual doctrine.

4 Summary Innovation, creative, mental competences formation and develop should be reliable base for unity and integrality of culture, science, industry, education, technology, and business. Innovation educational cluster MIMIM (3*MI) encourages teachers to engage with the ideas and practice involved in helping students to be creative in all areas of their study (humanitarian, technical, economic, nature, justice/law disciplines, etc.). Also in MIMIM (3*MI) suggest new definition, sense, and content of basic categories “creativity”, “creative thinking”, “strong”, effective solution, “modality of thinking”, and three modalities of thinking – binitarian, triune (poly-unity), quaterian. At the same time education of innovation, mental, creative competences formation and develop allows to specialist be free to choose the area of knowledge and skills using and in result realize own social and professional interest and be competitive in labor market.

References 1. Ratcliffe, S. (ed.): Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 5th edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2012). 484 p. 2. Yushko, S.V., Galikhanov, M.F., Kondratyev, V.V.: Integrative training of future engineers to innovative activities in conditions of postindustrial economy. Vysshee Obrazovanie v Rossii. 28(1), 65–75 (2019) 3. Ziyatdinova, J.N., Osipov, P.N., Bezrukov, A.N.: Global challenges and problems of Russian engineering education modernization. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2015, pp. 397–400 (2015). 7318061 4. Redin L.V., Ivanov V.G.: Fostering creativity in technological university: conception of creative metasystemic integrative methodology. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL), Florence, Italy, 20–24 September 2015, pp. 611–617 (2015) 5. Investopedia. Labor Productivity reviewed by Will Kenton Updated 28 March 2019. https:// www.investopedia.com/terms/l/labor-productivity.asp 6. OECD: GDP per hour worked (indicator) (2019). https://doi.org/10.1787/1439e590-en, https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm. Accessed 20 July 2019

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7. WIPO IP Facts and Figures 2018/World Intellectual Property Organization, 53 p. (2018). https://www.wipo.int/publications/en/details.jsp?id=4382&plang=EN 8. Redin, L.V.: Creative thinking of engineers and teachers: formation and development in terms of the concept of sustainable development. In: Joint International IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010 (2010) 9. Cramond, B., Redin, L.V., Likholetov, V.V.: Methodology, technology, and experience of creativity in modeling the contemporary engineering education. In: International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2013, pp. 849–855 (2013). 6644719

Project Activities in Technical Institutes as a Mean of Preparing Students for Life and Professional Self-determination Anastasia V. Tabolina1, Marina V. Olennikova1, Dmitrii V. Tikhonov2, Pavel Kozlovskii3(&), Tatyana A. Baranova1, and Elena B. Gulk1

2

1 Institute of Humanities, Department of Engineering Education and Psychology, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Institute of Industrial Management, Economy and Trade, Graduate School of Business and Management, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia [email protected] 3 Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Center (National Technology Initiative), Scientific Laboratory of Strategic Development of Engineering Markets, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. Modern pedagogical science considers project-based learning as an interactive learning technology that allows for the implementation of a personcentered approach to learning at a practical level. Mastering the techniques and methods of projection, mastering the ways of project thinking will allow students to develop their own vision of the future, can provide an individual with the possibility of a sustainable movement along their own personal development trajectory. Identifying professional opportunities (including in project activities) of future specialists and adjusting the educational trajectories of the best of them in the early stages, for example, in a university, are the subject of real interest of employers today. The article presents and comprehends Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU’s) own approaches to project activities, identifies and describes the roles and competencies of participants in project activities, describes the invariant functions of project activities, presents the results of a massive educational course on students’ project activities based on the university, identifies the importance of collective forms of association and inclusion of students in project activities, as well as the importance of cooperation with employers interested in the formation and management of human and social the capital. Keywords: Project activities in technical institutes
Professional self-determination
Students
Social capital
Individual educational trajectory

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 800–807, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_77

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1 Context In recent years, the objectives of higher education in Russia has qualitatively changed, a special attention is paid to issues aimed at improving the level of the graduates’ professional and social mobility. The current trends of society are: intellectualization of widespread professions, digitalization of the information bases and systems, customization of educational products, introduction of game technologies (gamification) as a tool of the professional tests. Almazova N. I. (2017) notes that the modern multidisciplinary university has an evident potential of pedagogical, psychological, organizational means to support the process of project activities, but currently it’s being implemented non-systemically. Undoubtedly, the desirable features, according to E. B. Gulk (2018), should be the analytical mind, operational thinking, an inclination to experiment, an ability for cooperation and teamwork. These skills can be developed systematically in the process of project activities [2, 8]. V. N. Kruglikov (2019) notes that a characteristic feature of the design is the creation of new products and at the same time the knowledge of new - that can only arise. The essence of the concept of “project activities” is associated with such scientific categories as “project”, “activity”, “creativity”, which have a diverse nature, both from the point of view of different branches of scientific knowledge, and from the point of view of different levels of science methodology [5]. According to L. P. Khalyapina (2018), the students’ activities allow to solve many problems of modern education: the development of the reflective position of the student in the educational process, the formation of skills to design their activities on the basis of practical requirements, the acquisition of experience of independent creative activity, involvement in the active search and conscious choice of ways of self-realization [3]. Modern pedagogical science considers project-based learning as an interactive learning technology that allows for the implementation of a person-centered approach to learning at a practical level. Mastering the techniques and methods of projection, mastering the ways of project thinking will allow students to develop their own vision of the future, can provide an individual with the possibility of a sustainable movement along their own personal educational trajectory. Work in scientific circles under the guidance of experienced teachers allows you to create general cultural competence and get new knowledge in the field of projection. The interest of researchers to the problems of project training is quite high. The history of the development of the project method can be traced in the works of D. Dewey, U. Kilpatrick, E. Collins, S. T. Shatsky and other authors [6, 9]. In domestic pedagogy, the studies of many authors (I.A. Zimnyaya, N.V. Matyash, M.B. Pavlova, E.S. Polat, V.V. Rubtsov, V.D. Simonenko) show that creative projects are effective means of training, education and development of students [4, 7]. Yakovleva N.F. believes that “the target in educational result at a practical level is the student’s project competence”. V.G. Veselova, N.V. Matyash and others believe that the projection process changes the most significant elements of the personality—selfawareness and orientation—and forms such regulatory components of selfconsciousness as: self-regulation, self-analysis and self-control of activity, responsibility, forecasting [2, 6].

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Bylieva D (2018), examining the main components of the concept of “project activity” in psychological and pedagogical science, concludes that participation in projection develops research and creative personality data: the ability to selfdetermination and goal setting, the ability to navigate in the information space [1, 4].

2 Purpose 1. Building an information and educational environment scheme of project activities; 2. Description of the role and the competence models of the project activities participants; 3. Description of invariant functions of the project activities at the technical university; 4. Analysis of the results of the pilot launch of the course “The Basics of project activities” and its adjustment taking into account the practical experience of the development and launch of projects by students of SPbPU.

3 Approach 3.1

The project activities allow the student to show independence and research position, see the specific application of knowledge to solve practical problems. The principles of modeling of information and educational environment of project activity in the system of higher education (in terms of Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University, “SPbSTU”) can be represented graphically (Fig. 1.)

information educational

environment

project activities (PA)

(IEE)

information education resource (IER)

Fig. 1. An information and educational environment scheme of the project activities

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Information and educational environment (IEE) – is computer software based, telecommunications environment that provides a quality information support for students, teachers and employers with the help of a technological means unity and interrelated content. This type of the environment should include organizational and methodological means, a set of technical and software tools for storage, processing, transmission of information, providing an instant access to the pedagogically relevant information and creating an opportunity for the teachers - student’s communication. Project activities (PA) – are educational, cognitive, creative or play activities, the resulting in the solution of any problem, presented in the form of its detailed description (project). The project is a detailed prototype of the future object or method of activity. Information educational resources (IER) – a database of the training and reference materials, a knowledge base; technical and software technology means. The developed scheme of information educational environment allows consider the modeling of project activities in the system of higher education systemically and comprehensively. 3.2

For the effective project activities implementation in the educational system of the university, we have formulated and identified project participants’ roles belonging to one steering team, and also described their competence (Table 1) Table 1. The roles and competence of the project participants

Name of the project participant’s role Supervisor

Tutor

Teacher Expert Client

3.3

Competence • Ensuring the project being in existence, • Professional orientation, coordination between the team members, • Motivation for the participants to implement the project • Assistance to the participants in selection and apprehension of the gained experience, • Making of the project creation trajectory, • Assistance in the development of students’ personal competence • Providing the participants with the certain knowledge and skills in a specially organized educational process • Professional expertise and assistance to the project team • Verification of the project activities results

In accordance with the list of tasks, identified roles and competence project participants’ roles belonging to one steering team, three groups of invariant functions were distinguished (Table 2)

A. Organizational and methodological functions (relating to the actual project activities); B. Psychological and pedagogical functions; C. Reflexive functions (relating to the evaluation of project activities).

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Function A. Organizational Information Simulative Analytical Goals formation Investigative Designing Planning Realization Control B. The functions Teaching Organizing Cognitive C. The reflective Evaluation Recommendation

3.4

Definition and methodological functions A collection, storage and processing of the information An ordering and structuring of the information in the form of formalized and non-formalized (in people’s mind) models An analysis of the information on models, a diagnose of the causes of problems, a forecast of trends in their development Goal setting activities to address the challenges, issues, and criteria for achieving objectives The new knowledge development for creating the solutions models The development of projects to manage the tasks and problems The development of the activities plans The implementation of the activities plans Control and management of software implementation of psychology and education The training in the process by the newly implemented means and methods of activity The coordination of the project implementation phases A cooperation with other specialists in order to carry out the projects Self-reflection of the activity, interaction with other sites functions The quality evaluation of the program and the whole system of project activities Identification of the positive and negative aspects of the completed project and its summarizing

The Results analysis of the course pilot launch “The Basics of project activities” and its adjustment in terms of the practical experience of the development and launch of projects by students of SPbPU

We analyzed the results of the course pilot launch “The Basics of project activities” for 2018-2019. The number of participants is more than 4050 students enrolled in the 2nd year of undergraduate (full-time department). Students (the participants of project groups) developed more than 510 projects in 2018, and in 2019 the number of the developed projects increased up to 610 due to two factors: reducing the number of participants in each team (which creates comfortable conditions for work), and the project promoting activities at the university. The students were introduced to the projects of different types: from organizational to technical or art projects. The course “The Basics of project activities” consists of two sections– theoretical and practical. A “theory” includes 14 lectures, with the video lectures, e-abstracts, built-in tasks and presentations combine. The “practice” is dedicated to the development and presentation of a unique creative product. The theme of the project can be

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chosen by the team or it can be a real task proposed by large Russian corporations. As the customers in 2019 the companies PJSC “MTS”, CJSC BIOCAD, Robert Bosch GmbH, OOO Skartel (“Yota”), CJSC “NIPK Electron”, JSC “Robbo” etc. SPbPU has become the first university in the country, which managed to develop and implement a project course, covering both students of all specialties, departments and institutes and combining online- and full-time practice.

4 Conclusions/Recommendations/Summary In this part we’d like to outline the main results of the SPbPU students project activities: Firstly, the students coped with the tasks and showed good results, many of which have found practical application in the educational system of the university. For example, a development of the Polytech’s mascot, Polly the robot, a foundation of the Peter the Great ESports tournament, etc. Among the proposed projects of this year are a creation of a robotic complex for fast food, a development of interactive booking of the meeting rooms and the coworking-café concept, and events organization for the “Night of museums–2019”, etc. Secondly, the major projects have been successfully implemented within the institutes of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU). For example, the project “Divergent Engineer” caused the greatest interest among students of the Humanities. The project was designed to develop a profile of the professions concept, which will be trained specialists of the technical university in the future. More than 200 students took part in the project activities. They needed not only to come up with an idea for the new specialty, but also to develop a training program, to distinguish the competence that new specialists should gain, and also to create a promotional video of the profession and its logo. As a result, the following future specialties were offered: “craft communicator”, “engineer of digital systems and e-vehicles”, “mind-fitness trainer”, “curator-technologist”. Thirdly, an expert analysis of the results of the course pilot launches “The basics of project activities” has been conducted. The experts were the university professors and employers. The main conclusion made by the experts is that the development of projects has a positive impact on the overall level of the effectiveness of project activities awareness among the university students. The project activities implementation within individual disciplines demonstrated a high level of the teams performance. The experts noted that students a set of competence within project activities are formed: general cultural (universal), professional and specialized, which cannot be fully formed within other types of educational activities. Fourthly, the interaction of SPbPU with high-tech companies showed their great interest in the students training in the field of project activities (all described activities were additionally supported by a number of such companies, only within 2018–2019, in SPbPU the technological competitions and accelerators projects supported by partner companies were held regularly). For example, the technological accelerator of the NTI center “New production technologies” was designed by SPbPU, 4 (four) projects presented for the benefit of UEC “Saturn” were chosen for the enterprise support. Upon

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that, in the Russian Federation in all other university and youth efforts on the project activities for 2018–2019, this company managed to find only 6 (six) projects. Fifthly, as it was noted the main interest of partner companies in cooperation with universities on project activities lies in 2 spheres: 1. Innovative projects 2. Specialists and project teams Today, the employer, for his part, is ready to invest in the development of human and social capital, managing it as an asset. However, by investing in this area, the employer is interested in their return, which in practice means a decrease in turnover and increase of the personnel loyalty in the development of which the company is invested, as well as the results in the form of implemented projects. The subject of real joint interest of both educational institutions and employers is a search for the professional opportunities (including the project activities) of future specialists and adjustment of the educational trajectories for the best of them in the early stages, for example, in the university. The research in the same area is also the subject of the upcoming study by the team of co-authors of this article. Taking into account the results of the pilot phase, it seems necessary to further improve the technology of the project activities and to implement them extensively into the educational system of the university.

References 1. Bylieva. D., Lobatyuk, V., Rubtsova, A.: Serious games as a recruitment tool in educational projects. In: 18th PCSF 2018 Professional Culture of the Specialist of the Future. The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, vol. LI, pp. 1922–1929 (2018). https://dx.doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2018.12.02.203 2. Khalyapina, L.P., Almazova, N.I., Andreeva, S.S.: Integration of online and offline education in the system of students’ preparation for global academic mobility. In: Digital Transformation and Global Society (DTGS 2018 Third International Conference, DTGS 2018 St. Petersburg, Russia, 30 May–2 June 2018 Revised Selected Papers, Part II, pp. 162–174 (2018) 3. Khalyapina, L.P., Baranova, T.A., Almazova, N.I.: Models of interdisciplinary co-ordination in higher education area of Russia. In: International Conference on Education, Research and Innovation, Saville, Spain, 16–18 November 2017, pp. 0780–0785 (2017) 4. Korneychuk, B., Bylieva, D.: The use of business games in Russian higher education: prerequisites and obstacles. In: 18th PCSF 2018 Professional Culture of the Specialist of the Future. The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences, vol. LI, pp. 13–22 (2018). https://dx.doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2018.12.02.2 5. Kruglikov, V.N., Kasyanik, P.M.: The role of active learning in the concept of global engineering education. Scientific and technical statements of the St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University. Hum. Soc. Sci. 3(227), 159–168 (2015) 6. Necheukhina, N.S., Matveeva, V.S., Babkin, I.A., Makarova, E.N.: Modern approaches to the educational process aimed at improving the quality of highly qualified personnel training. In: Shaposh-nikov, S. (ed.) Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE VI Forum Strategic Partnership of Universities and Enterprises of Hi-Tech Branches (Science. Education. Innovations) (SPUE), St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, 15–17 November 2017, pp. 192–195. IEEE (2017)

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7. Olennikova, M.V., Tabolina, A.V.: Psycho-pedagogical support of students project activities in multi-functional production laboratories (fab lab) on the basis of technical university. Adv. Intell. Syst. Comput. 917, 732–740 (2019) 8. Rubtsova, A.V., Almazova, N.I.: Productive model of foreign languages learning: realities and prospects. In: International Conference Communicative Strategies of Information Society (CSIS 2018). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, vol.289, pp. 319–324 (2018). https://doi.org/10.2991/csis-18.2019.65 9. Zemlinskaya, T.Ye., Fersman, N.G.: Modern learning technologies: empirical analyses (on the example of teaching foreign languages and intercultural communication). In: Soliman, K.S. (ed.) Proceedings of the 29th International Business Information Management Association Conference, 2017 – Education Excellence and Innovation Management through Vision 2020: From Regional Development Sustainability to Global Economic Growth, Vienna, Austria, 3–4 May 2017, pp. 4087–4094. IBIMA (2017)

Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory Mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills Wanwisa Wattanasin1(&), Pallop Piriyasurawong1, and Pinanta Chatwattana2 1

Department of Information and Communication Technology for Education, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected] 2 Department of Electronics Engineering Technology College of Industrial Technology, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected]

Abstract. The purposes of this study were: (1) to develop Engineering ProjectBased Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills (2) to evaluate about the suitability of Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills by 3 education experts, 3 electrical communication engineering experts and 3 information technology and communication experts. The findings indicated that the Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills 4 Components: 1. Input with 5 steps: (1) Lesson objective (2) learner analysis (3) teacher analysis (4) content and (5) virtual laboratory, 2. Process have 5 steps: (1) problem identification and analysis (2) project definition (3) engineering design and problem-solving (4) implementation of engineering problem-solving (5) appropriate system development and control, 3. Output as an assessment that has (1) Engineering skills evaluation, (2) innovation evaluation, 4. Feedback that consists of engineering skills and innovation evaluation result. From the Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills, It was found that the result about the learning model is proper in the highest level  ¼ 4:36; S:D: ¼ 0:19Þ. It’s shown that it can bring that model to use for the ðX development of ability, Engineering and Innovation Skills. Keywords: Project-Based Learning Laboratory mix Augmented Reality

 Engineering Learning Model  Virtual

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 808–817, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_78

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1 Introduction The education program in engineering aims to simultaneously educate students in theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge and, therefore, requires a more distinctive and efficient education management scheme, in order to fully develop the student’s ability while considering individual students’ differences. An education management scheme that promotes the development of the student’s ability and thinking process and emphasizes learning from the hands-on experience and practice, in order to make sure that student will be able to think, act, and solve the given problem properly. Therefore, technology becomes an important part that allows students to achieve higher educational accomplishment. The education program in engineering hence tends to use an integrated teaching scheme that mixes the two aspects, the theoretical and the practical, of engineering education together. Using a computer program to simulate certain operations allow students to understand some complex principles or theories quickly and efficiently. Such computer programs are, therefore, important tools that allow students of the Telecommunication Engineering, and other fields, to have the opportunities to learn, to the ideas, to develop the new knowledge, as well as to perform in-depth research efficiently (Kamgreang 2009: 1). The current advancement of the technology and the computer program’s ability allows the development of such simulations used in the education program to be possible. This method is known as the use of the virtual laboratory mixed with the augmented reality technology. This method mixes the real world with the virtual world and builds a virtual laboratory that allows students to access and use the virtual laboratory without any constraint, in term of the time and space. Students can redo the experiments as many times as they want, in order to satisfy their needs of practicing. On the other hand, the project-based learning is a technique that allows students to specify the subject of interest on their own, as per their interest; and cultivates students to be able to think, to act, and to solve the problem. The project-based learning is a learning technique of the 21st century that emphasizes students to learn, to become more creative, and to create innovations by themselves. The education program of this era, therefore, has to change and present an environment that allows constraint-free learning. As the education management is changing to a scheme that is far more suitable to cultivate the necessary abilities for the 21st century, the author interests in developing an engineering project-based learning model that uses the virtual laboratory mixed with the augmented reality to enhance the engineering and innovation skills as an answer for such a problem.

2 Research Objective 2.1

To develop Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills.

2.2

To evaluate about the suitability of Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills.

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3 Literature Review A. Project-based learning. Project-based learning is a teaching technique that simulates the real work experience so students may have the hands-on experience on how to solve the problem, how to work, how to plan, how to analyze a subject, how to collaborate, and how to create the knowledge on their own, using various formats and methods in combination. The Office of Education Council (2007: 2) remarks that project-based learning is an education management scheme that links with Bloom’s 6 Level of Thinking (Bloom), namely, knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Project-based learning is also a student-centered learning approach that focuses on students at every step, from planning, designing, creative application, and the assessment by the teacher, who serves as the learning manager. The Institute of Academic Development (2002: 3) provides a definition of a project as ‘a small research task given to students, who must solve the problem or find the answer for the given question, using the scientific method and process.’ B. Engineering design process. The engineering design process is comprised of 6 steps (NRC 2012), namely: (1) Problem Identification, which involves understanding the problem or the challenge, analyzing the condition or the constraint of the problem, in order to define the scope of the problem that will lead to the creation of the product or the method used for solving the problem. (2) Related Information Search, which involves gathering the related scientific, mathematical, and technological information and concept to the given problem, and evaluating the possibility, the advantage, and the disadvantage thereof. (3) Solution Design, which involves the application of the related information and concept to design the product or the method to solve the problem while considering the resource constraint and the situational condition. (4) Planning and development, which involves specifying the process for creating the product or the method and then creating the product and the method that will be used for solving the problem. (5) Testing, evaluation, and design improvement, which involves testing and evaluating the use of the product or the method, whereas the result can be used for further developing and improving the product or the method so it can solve the problem with better efficiency. Lastly, (6) presentation, which involves presenting the concept of the process for solving the related problem in creating the product or developing the method, hence allowing other people to understand the idea and the opportunity to recommend further improvement. C. CDIO Initiative (Conceive Design Implement Operate). CDIO Initiative is a learning framework used in the engineering program. It is developed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and widely accepted and used by many other engineering institutes around the world. CDIO aims to cultivate an engineer with the abilities to think, design, initiate, and operate various systems efficiently. The education programs that are based on the CDIO Initiative hence focus on producing engineers that have abilities to think, design, initiate, and operate various systems efficiently. CDIO-based education management hence requires teaching technique that emphasizes

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on the hands-on approach, project-based learning, engineering practice, site visitation, etc. These hands-on approaches, besides allow students to improve their engineeringrelated abilities, also allow students to cultivate other abilities that are necessary for their careers, such as communication skill, teamwork, and problem-solving. D. Virtual laboratory. The virtual laboratory is a computer program that allows students to practice with the tool and equipment before trying with the real things. The virtual laboratory may represent the result in the form of the still image, motion picture, or text-based presentation, all of which interact with the input provided from the user and the conditions given. Naruedol Darmsugri, Rangsan Wongsan, and Tippawhan Fungwuwhannarak (2009) remark that the performing experiments in the laboratory is a part of the learning and teaching program in scientific and technological related fields. Students require both theoretical and practical knowledge for the actual experiments. However, in an event where there are too many students, the education institute will require quite a large investment to provide them with the necessary tool and equipment for the experiment. As a result, some institutes are unable to sufficiently provide the tool and equipment to their students. Therefore, it is necessary to a learning method as an alternative for the laboratory experiment. Thanormporn Laohajaratsang (2002: 57) remarks that the virtual laboratory is a form of electronic media used for presenting the simulation onto the screen, whereas students can use for testing the hypotheses previously made as well as for observing the test result. This remark fits with Jian Qing Yu’s remark (Jian Qing Yu, 2007) that said, the virtual laboratory is a form of the electronic media that creates a simulated situation of the real situation and it is widely used for the purpose of studying and practicing. E. Augmented Reality (AR). The augmented reality is a technology that integrates the virtual reality with the imaging technology in order to project virtual objects and information onto the real world, whether in the forms of still images, 3D objects, motion pictures, video, audio, or audiovisual media, depending on the underlying designs. These objects and information are projected onto the real world, which serves as the background, using various software and peripheral equipment, such as webcam, computer, etc. The projection runs frame by frame and uses computer graphics to present the output. The augmented reality can be viewed via the computer monitory, smartphone, tablet, projector, or other output devices, as per the learning designing plan. The projected objects, such as the still image, motion picture, and sound, will instantly react to the viewer (student) and thus allows students to access the content in a far more interesting and realistic manner. F. Engineering and Innovation skills. The engineering thought is the systematic and consequential thinking processes that are interrelated and can be traced back and forth. The engineering thought starts from: (1) Defining the problem (improving the quality of life), (2) Developing and applying the model, 93) Designing and performing the research and experiment, (4) Analyzing the data, (5) using mathematics to aid the calculation, (6) Designing the solution, (7) Using evidences to support the idea, and (8) Evaluating and communicating the idea. Innovation means creating things with new methods, as well as the changes of thought, process, or organization; whether such

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changes originated from a revolutionary – drastic process or gradually extending and developing. The innovation is usually separated from the invention or the initiation. Therefore, it can be summarized that the engineering and innovation skills are skills that allow individuals to think, to design, to operate, and to control various systems efficiently, in order to lead to a successful innovation development, as per the given plan and development guideline efficiently, as well as to be ready to solve any defect found in the innovation.

4 Research Methodology Research Methodology is divided into 2 research objectives. For the first phase, it’s to develop the Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills. Synthesis thinking framework from Fig. 1, analyze and synthesize the basic information of elements such as Project-based learning, Engineering design process, Engineering Learning Model, Augmented Reality and Virtual Laboratory. And bring this element to be a determinant about thinking framework to develop patterns that consist of 4 elements as follows: (1) Input (2) Process (3) Output (4) Feedback. Project-based learning

Engineering Learning Model

Engineering design process

Augmented Reality Virtual Laboratory

Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills

Fig. 1. Research thinking framework

For the second phase, the evaluate of the appropriate of Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills by 3 education experts, 3 electrical communication engineering experts and 3 information technology and communication experts.

5 Result 5.1

This study, Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills, is a mixed learning model incorporating many techniques. Information from the study, analysis and synthesis of basic information of many components such as project-based model, engineering process, virtual lab, and augmented reality are used to form a concept for system development. To design a learning model based on process, the researcher uses system approach which has 4 main components:

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1. Input: consists of 5 steps (1) Lesson objectives (2) Learner analysis (3) Teacher analysis (4) Content and (5) Augmented reality lab. 2. Process: engineering project-based learning model using virtual laboratory and augmented reality, consists of 5 steps (1) Analysis and engineering problem identification (2) Project specification (3) Engineering design and problem solution, (4) Engineering problem solution, and (5) development and control of systems as appropriate. 3. Output: as an assessment consists of (1) Engineering skills assessment and (2) innovation skills assessment. 4. Feedback: consists of engineering and innovation skills assessment results.

Fig. 2. Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills

Result of component analysis can be used to develop a pattern shown in Fig. 2. Each component can be described as follows: 1. Input Component specification Input Components necessary for engineering project-based learning model using virtual laboratory and augmented reality to enhance engineering and innovation skills consist of Lesson objectives, learner analysis, teacher analysis, content and augmented reality lab. Each Component has details as follows: 1.1

Lesson objective specification aims to study learning behavior of the learner upon completion of augmented reality lab. Assessment methods to determine learning achievement are:

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1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4 1.1.5 1.1.6 1.2

The student is able to identify engineering problems. The student is able to write an engineering project. The student is able to design an engineering project. The student is able to solve engineering problems The student is able to improve engineering skills. The student is able to innovate. Learner analysis is highly critical as good analysis means the learner can use the augmented reality lab with higher efficiency and suitability. The learner in this case should be an engineering undergraduate that has basic knowledge of electrical measurement, electrical tool, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information and communication engineering. Teacher analysis is required in order to improve efficiency in the use of augmented reality lab. The teacher must be able to guide the student in general operation and especially if any problem arises. The teacher should be a lecturer in engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information and communication engineering, have computer skills, and knowledge in information technology and communications. Content is selection of basic knowledge necessary for communication and information engineering project such as electrical measurement and instrumentation, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information and communication engineering, fiber optic communication system, digital circuit design and communication microcontroller. Content shall be in accordance with syllabus of the information and communication engineering project course that is general research guideline and developmental research, research and development of tools and instruments related with information and communication engineering. The content shall be considerate of social, economic and environmental circumstances to promote sustainability and self-reliance of the community and society, under authorization by the advisor and committee. is a computer program created for the learner to allow reviewing of information and communication engineering knowledge. The lab has electrical and electronic circuit analysis and digital circuit analysis. In the VR lab, the learner can practice with virtual instruments just like real-world tools. The lab has electrical, electronic and digital circuit testing which is supplemented by augmented reality to display review media in the form of video. The videos are how-to-use instructions for electrical and communication instruments.

1.3

1.4

1.5

2. 2.1

2.2

Process-consists of 5 steps: Conceive-in this step the learner will study basic information and review information and communication engineering knowledge designed in the augmented reality-enhanced virtual reality lab to select the topic/issue to be studied. In this step the scope of a problem is specified which will lead to product creation. Project-after getting the topic/issue to be studied, the learner will study how to make a project in the augmented reality-enhanced virtual reality lab. Work design, method/source selection, and project planning are studied in this step.

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2.4

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Design-in this step the learner will actually carry out the project and design the product. The learner must follow the plan created in the previous step and is able to obtain additional information in the augmented reality-enhanced virtual reality lab. Implement-this step is testing of product obtained from the previous step and solving problems. The learner is likewise able to obtain additional information in the augmented reality-enhanced virtual reality lab. Operate-this final step is project presentation that covers concept, solution, product creation and implementation.

In every learning step, the learner must fill the project report form so that the teacher is kept informed of the progress. Also, the report is used for assessment. 3.

Output

This part is assessment of achievement obtained from the engineering project-based learning model using virtual laboratory and augmented reality to enhance engineering and innovation skills, using authentic assessment and consists of engineering skills and innovation. 3.1

3.2 4.

Engineering skills are abilities to think, design, create, execute and control systems effectively in order to successfully develop an innovation under effective planning and development. Ability to remedy any defect in the innovation is also included. Assessment of engineering skills is done based on the project report form in each step. Innovation is assessment of the learner’s final product. Criteria are novelty, fineness and utility. Feedback

Feedback is analysis of data from assessment and process steps, consisting of engineering skills and innovation, to improve the process and input specification. This process aims to perfect both engineering skills and innovation by achieving the goal of augmented reality-enhanced virtual reality lab. 5.2

Results of the evaluate of proper model (Table 1).

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Table 1. The model fitness evaluation result of the engineering project-based learning model using virtual laboratory mix augmented reality to enhance engineering and innovation skills  S.D. X Part 1. Detail of the engineering project-based learning model using virtual laboratory mix augmented reality to enhance engineering and innovation skills 4.78 0.44 1. Principle and Concept used as the basic for developing the engineering project-based learning model using virtual laboratory mix augmented reality to enhance engineering and innovation skills 2. Components’ level of fitness 4.11 0.78 Part 2. Detail of the learning model’s components 1. Specifying the input Component 4.11 0.60 2. The learning process 4.56 0.67 3. The evaluation 4.22 0.53 4. The feedback 4.44 0.53 • The level of improvement gained from the implementing the engineering 4.33 0.50 project-based learning model using virtual laboratory mix augmented reality to enhance engineering and innovation skills Average 4.36 0.19

Components

6 Conclusion The research result can be categorized and reported as per the 2 objectives of this research, as follow: 1. Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills incorporates many techniques in the model based on examination, analysis and synthesis of basic information of various elements such as project-based learning model, engineering process, virtual laboratory, and augmented reality. Such elements are used in the model development framework. The researcher uses systematic approach which 4 Components: 1. Input with 5 steps: (1) Lesson objective (2) learner analysis (3) teacher analysis (4) content and (5) virtual laboratory, 2. Process have 5 steps: (1) problem identification and analysis (2) project definition (3) engineering design and problem-solving (4) implementation of engineering problem-solving (5) appropriate system development and control, 3. Output as an assessment that has (1) Engineering skills evaluation, (2) innovation evaluation, 4. Feedback that consists of engineering skills and innovation evaluation result. 2. For the approval evaluation result of the Engineering Project-Based Learning Model Using Virtual Laboratory mix Augmented Reality to Enhance Engineering and Innovation Skills, experts regard the learning model to have the highest level of fitness and, thus, approve this learning model.

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7 Recommendation Implementation of the proposed learning model must consider the readiness of teachers, students, and the infrastructure, namely, the equipment, the laboratory, and the internet. The teacher should also possess knowledge about information and communication technology. Acknowledgement. The author would like to express his gratitude toward the Information and Communication Technology for Education Program, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University Of Technology North Bangkok, for its support.

References Burdea, G.C., Coiffet, P.: Virtual Reality Technology, 2nd edn. MIT Press, Boston (2013) Billiar, K., Hubelbank, J., Oliva, T., Camesano, T.: Teaching STEM by design. Adv. Eng. Educ. 4(1), 1–21 (2014) Tzeng, H.W., Tien, C.M.: Design of a virtual laboratory for teaching electric machinery. In: Systems Man and Cybernetics, pp. 971–976 (2000) Kawabata, S., Yamada, Y., Sanekata, M.: Virtual laboratory work of physics. In: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training, 2004. ITHET 2004, pp. 477–480 (2004) Jeerungsuwan, N.: Instructional Design and Assessment, 4th edn. KMUTNB Textbook Publishing Center, Bangkok (2015) National Research Council (NRC). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (2012). Accessed 26 December 2013. http://www.nap. edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165 Darmsugri, N., Wongsan, R., Fungwuwhannarak, T.: Operating system for electrical engineering laboratory via learning management network. In: ECTI-CARD 2009, May 2009, pp. 97–102 (2009) Treelek, W., Pirayasurawong, P.: An approach of collaborative project-based learning via mlearning towards ASEAN community: a case study of thai students and lao people’s democratic republic students. In: The 1st International Conference on Technical Education (ICTechEd 2013) (2013) Kamgreang, S.: Development instructional model in maxwell equation, plan wave and power of wave using SATADE learning model. Department of Electrical Education, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (2009)

The Method of Formation of the Students of the Engineering University Competence to Innovative Professional Activity Olga Yurievna Khatsrinova1, Mansur Floridovich Galikhanov2(&), and Julia Khatsrinova3 1

Department of Engineering Education and Psychology, Ph.D. in Engineering, KNRTU, Kazan, Russia [email protected] 2 Institute of Continuous Professional Education, Preston, UK [email protected] 3 Integrated Laboratory “NanoAnalytics”, KNRTU, Kazan, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. The article is devoted to the questions of the method of forming competence of students in an engineering college for innovative professional activity. Innovative competence - the integration of knowledge of the foundations of scientific thought, awareness of the dominant trends in the development of society, its professional industry, the motivational desire of specialists to be creatively realized in the profession, as well as the development of skills and abilities necessary for innovation. In this aspect, the problem of students’ readiness to perceive innovations and find solutions is coming to the fore. Therefore, the task of training masters in the direction of “Technosphere safety” is the formation of competencies for innovation. One of the main tools for the formation of competence are competence-oriented tasks. The use of such tasks increases the creativity of the educational process, stimulates the manifestation of the creative abilities of students, forms innovative approaches to solving professional problems. Keywords: Engineering education Masters
Task approach


Methodical aspect
Innovative activity


1 Context A characteristic feature of the modern economic development of most countries is the transition to an innovative type, which is the construction of an economy based primarily on the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge. There are a number of factors and conditions that affect production processes, and, of course, the level of development of professional competences of engineers: • growth of production intensity, i.e. the needs of real production processes to use new, reliable scientific knowledge;

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• informatization of production processes, the introduction of new information technologies; • the movement of human capital, technology and technology in connection with the integration processes in the EU and EurAsEC zone; • constant fluctuations in prices for raw materials, goods and services, the unstable nature of the main levers of economic growth; • growth of production culture; • increased requirements for the level of human capital development; • strengthening environmental requirements for production activities. Modernization of industry is impossible without the development and improvement of engineering education, which faces the challenge of increasing the level of training of specialists who are ready for innovative engineering activities. Such activities include the analysis of the existing technological level, the development of a new technological solution, the creation of a new competitive product. Preparation of students for innovative engineering activities should be organized on the basis of their inclusion in all listed stages of this activity. The modernization of educational processes, recorded in the “Kronberg Declaration on the Future of Knowledge Acquisition and Processes” (Germany, 2007), determines the need for universities to search for new approaches to designing the content of engineering training. Training programs for future specialists should reflect the requirements of not only Federal educational standards, but also professional standards, because for each area of training a set of competencies will be different. But they can be united by focusing on the innovative nature of future professional activity. In such conditions, the objectives of universities is to prepare graduates with qualifications that correspond to the business order and time, ensuring the quality of graduates’ training in accordance with the demand, on time. The engineer must follow the call of Kant “expand your horizon of knowledge as much as possible.” To improve the effectiveness of such training, special universities were created national research universities, designed to develop the scientific, technical and educational potential of higher education institutions and focus it on the implementation of a comprehensive strategy to prepare future specialists for professional activities satisfying the employer and the student himself. The main part of the problems concerns changes within engineering education itself. Teaching methods remain unchanged, they are dominated by the domination of passive forms of work with students, there is still a setting for learning information, and not understanding. Communication with industry and science is still weak. The innovation process, as an activity for creating and disseminating innovations, is expressed by the main driving force for the development of society, the characteristic features of which are the emergence of fundamentally new ideas, the receipt of scientific and technical results on their basis, the introduction of new technical solutions into the practical activities of organizations, the dissemination of innovations and their application new conditions [5]. Innovation activity as an activity for the creation and introduction of fundamentally new product samples, new or improved technological processes requires specialists and certain sets of qualities. Innovative competence - the integration of knowledge of the foundations of scientific thought, awareness of the

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dominant trends in the development of society, its professional industry, the motivational desire of specialists to be creatively realized in the profession, as well as the development of skills and abilities necessary for innovation. In this aspect, the problem of students’ readiness to perceive innovations and find solutions is coming to the fore. Formation of relevant competences in the field of engineering activity will allow to solve the problems of developing new technical and technological solutions, ensuring the implementation of promising innovations, creating competitive advantages in the innovations themselves and the ways of their implementation. Therefore, the task of training masters in the direction of “Technosphere safety” is the formation of competencies for innovation. Technosphere safety is a prerequisite of paramount importance necessary to ensure comfortable life and the progressive development of the international economy. Such specialists work in many industries, face a wide range of issues that need to be resolved quickly.

2 Purpose or Goal Today, professional competencies that an engineer should have in the 21st century have already been named. But there are changes in the functions of the activity, which should become more and more innovative, so we consider it expedient to formulate competencies in the learning process that will ensure innovation in engineering. The professional uniqueness of an engineer’s activity lies in the fact that the full algorithmization of his activity is impossible, since his activity is constructive. In order to form an active position of a future specialist, academic disciplines should work in a complex with regard to mutual content. Under production conditions, most graduates who have successfully graduated from an institution of higher learning are rendered helpless before the productive solution of professional engineering tasks, not to mention organizational, managerial, economic, legal, marketing, and others. As the main contradictions between the existing system of engineering education and the requirements of the innovative development of the country’s economy, experts [3] highlight the following: • between the fundamentalization of education and the need to deepen special training; • between the interdisciplinary nature of modern techniques and insufficient use of them in the educational process; • between the need to conduct practice-oriented training and the lack of an appropriate material base; • between the need to carry out advanced training and appeal to past experience in educational practice. The presented contradictions can be eliminated, Naumkin [4], if we move from traditional forms, methods, means and content of education to an innovative teaching model, by which he understands a methodology based on the integration of innovative teaching methods (contextual, interdisciplinary training, team learning, learning from own experience) and ensuring the formation of students’ ability to innovate.

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Accordingly, an innovative approach to learning is to build a methodical training system in which students develop a willingness to innovate, i.e. the desire to solve all the tasks posed at the level of using the latest professional tools. The main characteristics of innovation are [1]: • strengthening the creative nature of the activity - the ability to creatively and nonroutinely solve professional tasks, quickly navigate in large volumes of information; • integration of engineering functions and activities - an effective combination of design, design, technological functions in the design of products and technologies, the organization of their production, the ability to make decisions independently; • effective inter-professional communication - willingness to work effectively in a team with representatives of other professions to solve professional problems. • focus on market needs - the desire to continuously improve the quality of goods and services, their competitiveness, meet the requirements of the market. Thus, for the effective functioning of integrated systems of education, science and production, it is necessary to create an integrated system of innovative engineering education. It becomes necessary for a specialist in the field of engineering and technology to form not only specific knowledge and skills, but also “special competencies” aimed at the ability to put them into practice in creating new competitive products. Innovation activity can be viewed as a process of effective means governing pedagogical stereotypes. Innovative activity, on the one hand, is a way of organizing the educational space. We believe that the future engineer’s readiness for innovation is a set of interrelated individual psychological characteristics of a person, professional and special knowledge and skills in the field of innovation, which determine the desire to learn new ways and methods performance of activities, certain competencies corresponding to this type of activity. The method of preparing future engineers for innovation is based on the subjectsubject interaction of the teacher and student and relies on modern teaching tools, active teaching methods that orient the student to self-development, the creative application of knowledge, and the creation of innovations. Thus, there is a growing need for the development of methods that change the approach to the educational activities of the university, conducive to the formation of relevant competencies among future graduates. Therefore, the aim of our research was to substantiate the possibility of forming competence to innovative professional activity by means of the discipline “Management of learning processes”. General objectives of graduate training in the direction of “Technosphere safety”: successfully assess the impact of harmful and hazardous production factors on the health and performance of workers, design typical measures for labor protection, carry out certification of workplaces for working conditions, develop practical recommendations for optimizing working conditions at work, possess universal and subject-specific competences that contribute to its social mobility and sustainability in the market Ore. The process of preparing for future professional activities should be focused on the integration of students’ interdisciplinary knowledge, contributing to the intellectual and creative development of future graduates of programs. The conditions for effective mastering of the discipline can be considered as the motivational-value attitude of students to this process, as well as their cognitive activity, responsibility, ability to self-educate and self-educate. According to the author,

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it is now necessary to rethink the content of training students in technospheric safety. Fundamental changes should be made to the technology of organizing such preparation as a process. Managing the process of training in the technospheric safety of masters will be effective if it is carried out on the basis of competence-oriented tasks. Competence-oriented tasks include the content and technology of training, teaching and assessing the quality of student training in the educational process, ensuring the effectiveness of the formation of super- professional competencies. An important place in professional competence, and therefore in the content of the future specialist’s training, is given to mastering the skills to combine theoretical knowledge with practical training, engineering itself with knowledge and experience in various fields, for example, in the field of comparative analysis of technology, marketing systems, search for innovations and others. It is this content that should complement the conceptual apparatus of the discipline itself, in order to ensure the ability to identify and implement new approaches to the implementation of future professional activities. It will be aimed at the formation of competencies for innovation. Practical tasks are used in the classes: in the conditions of which the practical situation is described, for the resolution of which it is necessary to apply not only knowledge from different subject areas (necessarily including the discipline being studied), but also students acquired in practice, in everyday experience. The formulation of the tasks or the result of its decision should be of cognitive, professional, social significance for the students so that the activities of the students in the course of their decision are motivated; the way the student does the job is not fully known or consists of a combination of methods known to him. We believe that such types of tasks and ways to solve them provide an opportunity to gain experience in solving problems of innovative professional activities. These tasks form the basis of the discipline teaching methodology.

3 Approach Many Russian scientists, such as Avdeev N.F., Zhurakovsky V.M., Naumkin N.I., Ivanov V.G., Valeeva N.Sh. they consider that “in order to be competitive in the labor and labor market, graduates of technical higher educational institutions are not enough to have a high level of professional training; they must also have some new, unusual “marketable properties” [9]. We also consider the position of scientists of the University of Tel Aviv and the International Nanotechnology Research Center in Israel, Levkov, and Figovsky to be fair [2]. The contradiction formulated by them “An innovative specialist must be competent in a wide range of areas of knowledge and, at the same time, the process of mastering new knowledge should not go beyond the permissible temporal and psychological limits,” they solved using the method of analogies, which suggests a two-dimensional method of training in the process of training innovative engineers. This is the acquisition of practical application skills of the obtained educational information in various subject areas. Innovative competences the integration of knowledge of the foundations of scientific thought, awareness of the leading trends in the development of society as a whole, and its professional industry in particular, the motivational desire of specialists to be creatively realized in the

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profession, as well as the development of skills and abilities necessary for innovation. On the one hand, it is necessary to direct efforts to increase the student’s sensitivity to the new and non-standard, and on the other, to develop the ability to operate with these products of creative activity. Students were offered a questionnaire to identify the personal qualities necessary for innovation. Self-evaluation, which was conducted by students, showed that the level of formation of these qualities is on average from 30% to 50%. Therefore, our approach to learning is to build a methodological system in which students develop the ability and desire to solve problems at the level of finding new solutions. The integrity of the master’s training system for solving the problems of technospheric safety in their chosen professional field can be ensured if the processes of its design and implementation are carried out on the basis of the competence approach. Competence-based approach focuses the subjects of the educational process on the formation of a system of competencies necessary for the successful solution of professional tasks that meet the requirements of both educational standards and professional ones. The increasing social and economic consequences of emergency situations are a serious argument in favor of the ever-increasing quality requirements for the training of such specialists. The work of specialists in the field of technospheric safety is associated with events that are commonly referred to as “spontaneous and unpredictable”. Training graduates of educational programs in the direction of “Technosphere safety” is the professional training of future specialists to implement competent, systematically organized professional activities in forecasting, preventing, “neutralizing” and mobile elimination of hazards from the technosphere. In essence, the competence approach implies how the student can act outside the learning situation. It can not only solve a number of training tasks, but also has the ability to act in atypical situations, overcome the difficulties and implement the projects that arise for a specialist of his profile. This approach requires a restructuring of the training structure, since it is based on the integration of all academic disciplines, the development of new ways of testing mastery of competences. A systems approach in relation to training in technospheric safety of masters should orient teachers to the formation of a holistic “competence-based” image of a future graduate who is able to carry out innovative activities. Axiological approach is inextricably linked with the process of humanization of engineering activities in the modern world. The formation of a personal value attitude to the provision of technospheric safety in his professional field from a modern engineer stimulates the engineer’s consciousness to the social essence of engineering activity while ensuring safety in the technosphere [8]. Student-centered and personal-activity approaches in organizing the process of preparing students concentrate the attention of the teacher on the need to take into account the individual professional interests of students, their personal qualities, ambitions, value orientations and abilities. Contextual approach implies “immersion” of the educational process in the context of future professional activity. This approach, which uses active teaching methods, allows the student to examine and analyze professional situations from various angles. An interdisciplinary approach to learning allows you to train students to independently acquire knowledge from various fields of science and industries, group them and concentrate in the context of a specific problem to be solved. In this case, the

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boundaries between courses and disciplines become more flexible and mobile, which allows students to form a holistic system of knowledge. The project method allows students to teach themselves to think, find and solve problems, involving for this purpose knowledge from different areas, the ability to predict the results and the possible consequences of different solutions, to establish cause-effect relationships. On the discipline “Management of learning processes.” During this time, students learn the essence and organization of the learning process. The content of the discipline “Management of learning processes” included a variant module “Basics of innovative engineering activity” (36 h). The objective of this module is to integrate humanitarian and technical knowledge, to direct students to the ability to solve professional tasks and to identify new ways and approaches to their solution. To implement the learning process with a small number of hours, we chose the “Flipped classrooms” technique, which is one of the blended learning models and combines the technologies of traditional and distance education [6]. It allows students to choose their own learning rhythm. This is due to the fact that students view the received presentations and receive additional comments from the teacher offline, which ensures proper consistency and continuity of training. According to many students, the most convenient way of communication is currently the Vkontakte network. The study of theoretical material is carried out by students independently by working with online resources provided by the teacher, and the classroom work is devoted to discussing, first of all, the most important issues, as well as the implementation of practical tasks. When performing tasks for extracurricular work, the student should be able to feedback from the teacher, as well as interaction with other students. This can be done using the MOODLE learning management system. Some of the training questions were studied by masters earlier; therefore, these sections are presented at the level of knowledge actualization with a generalization related to the existing primary professional experience. On the presentation of problematic issues given only 4 h of lectures. This is followed by practical exercises, the purpose of which is to enhance the creative nature of the activity (the ability to creatively and creatively solve professional tasks, quickly navigate large amounts of information; effective inter- professional communication (readiness for effective teamwork to solve professional problems). The students themselves choose the methods of working on the problem and set deadlines for implementation. The classes use practical tasks in which described a practical situation, for the resolution of which it is necessary to apply not only knowledge from different subject areas (necessarily including the discipline being studied), but also students’ acquired practical experience in everyday experience. The statement of the task or the result of its decision should be educational, professional, social significance for students so that the activity of students during his decision is motivated, the way the student is given the task is not fully known or consists of a combination of methods known to him individuals. Students need to find solutions to problems of technospheric safety, made on the basis of the science of bionics, and prove that knowledge engineering is necessary for successful solution of engineering problems, besides, all knowledge is interrelated. Questions to be solved in practical classes: “How to protect pedestrians from falling icicles?”, “How to collect spilled oil products from the surface of the water?”, “How to protect the highway surface from ice?”, “How to ensure the road surface is clean and

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dry?”, “In the event of a fire alarm, how to safely leave this audience?”, “How to dispose of chemical waste?”. As an independent work, the task “Highlight a problem, a technical task that you consider important, in the solution of which you would like to participate, is proposed.” As a result of working with employers, the following tasks were formulated: “During the drilling process, the drilling mud was delivered to the crew that carried out this process in ready-made form, which was pumped into the well. In the process of injection complications have arisen in the form of shedding the soil. In this situation, immediate measures should be taken to rescue the well. What ways to eliminate abnormal situations can you suggest? What are the ways to close a well?”; “During drilling, an open oil fountain was formed at the drilling site. This situation is regarded as an accident. Until the moment when the anti-fountain paramilitary unit arrives, certain measures should be taken to facilitate the dismantling of the fountain. An emergency response headquarters was organized, which decided to create support services. You need to distribute emergency response tasks between the services and suggest a name for each of the services.” Thus, when studying a course, real problem situations are considered, allowing students to participate in the development of a group problem solution. At the final stage of education, it is necessary to submit a project, the topic of which is chosen independently by a group of students and represents a way to solve a professional task with economic efficiency. For example, one group of students reviewed the environmental problems of the woodworking workshop of the Namangan plant. The students studied the state of the problem and, in order to eliminate it, offered to install FINGO electrostatic precipitators, calculating possible costs and being convinced of the efficiency of the proposed option. Another group proposed the project “Identification of harmful production factors of the boiler house of AUCHAN LLC and measures of protection against their impact.” It was shown that when servicing boilers the actual noise value is one and a half times the nominal one. To normalize the working situation, the following measures were proposed to ensure safety from noise: systematic lubrication of rotating and moving elements; sound insulation of electric motors (housings); the use of shock absorbers between the equipment and the foundation; timely scheduled maintenance; use of personal protective equipment. The establishment of a sound insulating substrate was proposed as an innovative component. Soundproof rubberized material reduces noise from the operation of boilers by 20%. The possibilities of this proposal were also considered in terms of reducing the time of disability of employees of the enterprise. In assessing the solution of problems, each student of the group tried on the functions of an expert and during the discussion everyone came to the correct way to solve problems.

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4 Results The possibilities of the discipline “Process management with the purpose of forming students’ competence to innovative engineering activity. As a result of the survey at the final stage of training, students revealed a high level of formation. The results are presented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. The level of formation of competences of innovative engineering activities.

A system of tasks has been developed for students, contributing to the enhancement of cognitive activity, the systematization of theoretical knowledge and their practical use in future innovative engineering activities. The training uses combined classes, including problem lectures, practical classes, independent work. The project was defended in the form of a presentation of the results of each group to members of other teams. Masters talked about the results of intellectual activity, presented developed innovative products, revealed the area of use and the expected effect. All those present could ask questions and take part in the discussion. According to the results of the defense, the experts made the final decision - the publication of a scientific article, further research. Throughout the work of the teams, a cumulative points system (individual and team) acted, while each team member was responsible for his actions to the team and for the team as a whole. A final survey of participants was conducted. The results of the survey indicate that students consider issues related to ensuring technospheric safety to be highly significant and classify them as their future professional activity (Fig. 2). In addition, we can say about the positive nature of the internal integration of the discipline “Management of learning processes” with the disciplines of general technical and special cycles. Students also noted the immersion in the educational environment, which required a constant search for new ideas or the use of known solutions in new situations. The teaching method developed by us allowed the masters to form the competence of innovative engineering activity.

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Yes The preservation of human life… Reducing the impact of… Formation of a technosphere… Ensuring human security in the… Use of knowledge of the… Ensuring human security and… 0

20

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Yes Possession of a safety culture and risk-oriented thinking, in which safety and environmental issues… The ability to promote the goals and objectives of ensuring human security and the environment in… Readiness to use knowledge on the organization of labor protection, environmental protection and… 0

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40

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Fig. 2. Positive assessment of the importance of professional activity

5 Conclusions Fundamental to the implementation of the program of research universities are the conditions for the formation of superprofessional competencies for innovation activities. This can be done by means of humanitarian discipline. “Management of learning processes.” In its content was included the optional module “Fundamentals of innovative engineering activities.” When solving the problem of preparing students for innovative engineering activity, the content of the discipline “Management of learning processes” was selected, which is formed and implemented through the structural components of the methodological system - the target, conceptual, informative, procedural- technological and

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reflexive-diagnostic. Competence-oriented tasks perform not so much a controlling, as a formative function. Many of these tasks involve an independent search for information: the student must assess how incomplete the information he has and know how to “get” it. This is one of the common competencies: to be able to understand what you lack to solve the task, to find and use some additional materials. Knowledge of the course allows you to improve the understanding of the special disciplines under study, to competently approach the solution of scientific and technical problems, to develop creative abilities. The advantages of the discipline include: (1) enhancing the creative nature of the activity (the ability to creatively and creatively solve professional tasks, quickly navigate in large volumes of information); (2) the acquisition of knowledge and orientation in the field of innovation system; (3) the formation of motivation for innovative engineering activities; (4) effective interprofessional communication. At the final stage of development is an educational and methodological complex, which includes a system of information and computer support for the course in the form of an electronic textbook, addresses of official websites in the field of engineering creativity and other software tools, allowing students to independently acquire knowledge and skills in the discipline and to exercise self-control of the level of learning. Possessing the relevant competences, formed using innovative methods and approaches, specialists will be able to identify, analyze non-standard problems, adapt to changes in external conditions and make effective management decisions in the course of their professional activities. The data that was obtained as a result of testing, questioning, interviews, showed that the degree of completeness of the formation of the structural components of competence to innovative professional activity increased (up to 80%). In addition, a high level of masters’ interest in engineering activity was revealed (86%), which is confirmed by the content of professional problems and ways to solve them.

References 1. Ilyin, I.V., Ursul, A.D., Ursul. T.A., Andreev, A.I.: Education for Sustainable Development in Russia: Problems and Prospects (Expert-analytical report), p. 57. Moscow Edition of the Publishing House “Teacher”; Moscow University Press, Moscow (2017) 2. Levkov, K.L., Figovsky, O.L.: Two-dimensional training method in the preparation of innovative engineers. Collection of reports of the scientific school with international participation “Higher technical education as a tool for innovative development”, Kazan, pp. 226–234, 5–7 October 2011 3. Livanov, D.V.: The official opening of the International Workshop on Innovation and the Reform of Engineering Education. OLD.MISIS.RU, Moscow (2011). http://old.misis.ru/ru/ 4556/ctl/Details/mid/9959/ItemID/5980. Accessed 18 Jan 2019 4. Naumkin, N.I., Grosheva, E.P., Shekshaeva, N.N., Kupryashkin, V.F.: The structuring of competence in innovative engineering activities and the integration of its components. Integr. Educ. (3), 25–32 (2014) 5. First UNESCO World Engineering Report: Lack of Engineers - a Threat to Development. UNESCO.ORG, France (2010). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001897/189753e.pdf. Accessed 25 Jan 2019

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6. Price, D.: Open. How we will live, work and study. ZAO Olymp - Business, Moscow, S. 120 (2015) 7. Talyzina, N.F.: Managing the Process of Learning. Publishing House of Moscow State University, Moscow (1984). 344 p. 8. Yagolkovskiy, S.R.: Psychology of Innovation: Approaches, Models, Processes: A Monograph. Izd. Home of the Higher School of Economics, Moscow (2011). 270 p. 9. Khatsrinova, O.Y., Ivanov, V.G.: Competence of future engineers. In: CL 2017 - 20th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, Budapest, Hungary, 27–29 September 2017, pp. 287–292. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73210-7_34

A Project-Centric Learning Strategy in Biotechnology Seshasai Srinivasan(&), Amin Reza Rajabzadeh, and Dan Centea W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada {ssriniv,rajaba,centeadn}@mcmaster.ca

Abstract. In this work we present the details on the initiative that has been taken by the Walter Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology at McMaster University to inculcate multi-disciplinary project-based learning activities into the undergraduate curriculum. The approach aims to form groups of students from the different educational backgrounds at the school to solve engineering related problems focusing on building competencies in the students. Specifically, students from three disciplines, namely, Biotechnology, Manufacturing and Automation Engineering Technology are grouped to develop a biosensing platform to detect antibiotics in food. Students from each program will be contributing to a part of the project for which they have developed competencies in their courses. We present a framework to be followed to implement such initiatives, and the expected outcomes and the skills that the students are expected to gain. Keywords: Multi-disciplinary projects training


Biotechnology
Competency-based

1 Introduction There is an increasing effort among the post-secondary institutions worldwide to educate and train graduates with high competencies. This is increasingly important because of the multi-disciplinary nature of problems that the graduates are expected to solve in their careers. In line with this, McMaster University’s guiding document titled “Forward With Integrity” places special emphasis on graduating students with capability in addition to capacity [1]. A capable graduate is able to quickly learn and adapt to the stringent demands at the workplace and quickly evolves into an efficient problem solver. This implies that we should be placing great significance on competency-based training (CBT) of the graduates. In fact, competencies and learning outcomes are key parameters that are compared to evaluate the higher education institutions. By engaging students in competency-based learning, they are trained to be critical and creative thinkers. Integrating this type of training into a multi-disciplinary learning environment could potentially promote interactions between peers from different educational backgrounds, enhancing their interpersonal skills as well as ability to adapt to an industrial setting wherein multi-disciplinary teams routinely work in solving different problems. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 830–838, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_80

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A variety of strategies, such as co-operative and small group learning [2–7], problem-based learning [8–14], active learning [15–23], inquiry-based learning [12, 24, 25], challenge-based learning [26], and undergraduate research-based learning [27] have been implemented by post-secondary institutions in order to promote learning and competency. The project-centric approach which is also the focus of this study, was first introduced by John Dewey wherein he proposed the concept of “learning by doing”, enabling project-based learning to promote knowledge and skills by working in a collaborative environment [28]. McMaster University’s Faculty of Engineering has recently launched the Pivot program to bolster the integration of project-centric learning in the faculty curriculum [29]. MIT has introduced the New Engineering Education Transformation (NEET), a multi-disciplinary project-centric initiative that applies several themes in their projects [30]. Such initiatives in higher education are not surprising because they foster long-term retention of content and improve problem solving skills and students’ attitudes toward learning. As summarized by Brawner [31], there are several benefits to project-centric learning (Fig. 1) include: a deeper of understanding of concepts, broader knowledge base, improved interpersonal and communication skills, enhanced leadership skills, increased creativity, and improved writing skills.

a deeper of understanding of concepts broader knowledge base

improved writing skills

Project-centric learning improved interpersonal and communicatio n skills

increased creativity enhanced leadership skills

Fig. 1. Benefits to project-centric learning

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By actively engaging with peers form other disciplines, the students learn the intricacies and experience the essence of other disciplines too. In view of the fact that they will be (usually) developing a prototype at the end of the project, often drives deeper engagement. To this end, they evolve as good researchers and pursue solving a more significant problem. This is also a very rewarding experience unlike the normal pursuit of answers to pass questions in assessments like a quiz, assignment, test or an exam.

2 The Project-Centric Framework The pilot program for the project-centric learning is being introduced with the theme area of Biotechnology. The proposed open-end project is a typical real-world problem that requires knowledge and expertise from various disciplines. More precisely, it will need concepts from biotechnology, electrical engineering, as well as software engineering. Needless to say, all these skills are not collectively taught to the students in a single program of biotechnology. In other words, this multi-disciplinary problem will involve students from other streams, in addition to the biotechnology program, enabling them to solve a real-world problem. A key requirement of the implementation framework was that the project be multidisciplinary and be interlaced with the existing courses. The interlacing is important because at the Walter Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology (SEPT), the students are overwhelmed with the labs for almost every course that they take during their undergraduate programs. This almost doubles the efforts that they have to undertake to earn a degree here. The emphasis on labs is significant in the school because of the highly applied nature of the programs that are structured based on the inputs received from the industry. Hence, any new addition to the curriculum will not yield the anticipated dividends unless it is at the expense of some existing component of the curriculum. The governing principles for implementing the initiative included providing a transformational education experience inculcating the values of capability, makers, discoverers and the art of self-learning, consistent with the vision outlined by the President at McMaster University in “Forward with Integrity” [1].

Course selection

Develop projects

Student selection

Mentorship

Rewards

Fig. 2. The key aspects of the framework for implementing a project centric curriculum for engineering education.

For a successful implementation and roll-out of the pilot project, the key tasks of the framework were identified as shown in Fig. 2. These tasks are described as follows:

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1. Course Selection: Identifying and reconstructing the courses that will be offered in a project based format. An interdisciplinary project which is worth 20–30% of the final grades will be undertaken by the students in the courses. Courses will be identified in years 2–4 of the undergraduate program. The capstone project will be the 4th year course. 2. Develop Projects: A group of faculty members will define the multidisciplinary project that will include components of biotechnology, engineering, design, manufacturing, management as well as ethics. The faculty members formulating the projects will also serve as mentors for the projects that they develop. 3. Student Selection: An application process will be developed that includes a statement of interest as well as a personal interview for the students to be selected into this program. This is to ensure that only highly motivated students with an appetite for some research and self-learning are selected to be coached for excellence in innovation. 4. Mentorship: Providing mentorship to students for a successful implementation of the project is an extremely important aspect. It must be noted that the undergraduate students might not have the research skills and will need some amount of initial coaching on these methods. In doing so, the thrust will be in collaboration, group work and critical thinking aimed at transforming the young minds as makers and discoverers who will, through the process, master the art of self-learning. 5. Rewards: In addition to receiving grades as part of a course for undertaking the project, there is an exploration underway to potentially issue certificates and/or digital badges.

Table 1. The timeline to be followed until the rollout of the pilot project. Month in 2019 Jan Jan Jan–Mar

Mar

Apr Apr–May Jun Jun–Aug

Action item Planning an initial ad and awareness campaign with the students Develop a procedure to select students and prepare the application forms Develop the Multi-Disciplinary Project 1. Identify the courses in which the multi-disciplinary project will be developed 2. Pool the learning outcomes from the courses 3. Develop the project Revisit classrooms with advanced ads, outlining Open Application process from students (Deadline for application will be April 30) 1. Present the plan to the faculty to invite participation 2. Assign faculty leads for individual projects Fine tune the projects to ensure that the goals are achieved Notify selected students. 1. Test each project with 2 summer students to see feasibility 2. Update project by fine tuning the student requirements/deliverables

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To successfully implement the above framework, a committee of faculty members with backgrounds in biotechnology, manufacturing and automation engineering were involved. The committee was collectively responsible for the tasks outlines above. The timelines that were associated with these tasks are summarized in Table 1. These tasks are planned to roll out the pilot project in Fall 2019. The proposed budget per group in each term is set at $250–$300. The enrollment will be limited to 20 students from different disciplines and will be distributed in groups of about 5–6 students per group.

3 Project Details The project is aimed at developing a technology for testing and quantifying antibiotics in edible meat products. This pilot project will be launched in Fall 2019 with participation from the 2nd year engineering technology students from different programs, namely: biotechnology, manufacturing engineering technology and automation engineering technology. Collectively, the students from these backgrounds will have adequate training to solve this problem. The tasks to be undertaken by the students in the three streams are as follows: Biotechnology: The key objectives that the students from this stream will be working on are briefly described as follows: Objective 1 - PCR Primer Design: Students will design DNA oligo sequence in order to synthesize a set of primers for a PCR reaction. Objective 2 - PCR Reaction and DNA Purification: Students will isolate chromosomal DNA and analyze them by UV spectroscopy to determine the concentration and relative purity, and by agarose gel electrophoresis to characterize it mobility. Students will run PCR reaction and purify PCR products using primer sequence. Objective 3 - DNA immobilization on a functionalized surface: Students will biofunctionalize the surface, immobilize the purified DNA on a semiconductor sensor or will use AuNPs-based biosensing techniques to detect the analyte. Subsequently, they will collaborate with the automation and manufacturing students to design, and build the biosensing device and its associated hardware/software. Objective 4 - System configuration of a DNA-based biosensor, data analysis, and troubleshooting: Students will test the DNA biosensor with the corresponding target, based on the signal output from the semiconductor or light detector. Students will perform data collection, interpretation and revision of the plan if needed. Students will learn how to prepare a calibration curve from the recorded voltage or light intensity to convert the signal output to the concentration of antibiotics in water or food. Automation Engineering Technology: The key objectives that the students from this stream will be working on are briefly described as follows: Objective 1 - Project Comprehension: Students involved in this project will devote some time to understand the entire picture of this project and conduct some background investigation. Based on this, a detailed project implementation plan will be developed. Objective 2 - Developing a Controlled Lighting System: Students will research to select a lighting device which is suitable to regulate and enhance the optical signal

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emitted from biosensors. The proper power source and controller will be selected. A controlled lighting circuit will be designed and tested on the biosensor. Objective 3 - Develop an optical detection system: Students will work on developing a system to detect the enhanced optical signal by selecting and including a proper optical transducer or vision device. Objective 4 - Communication Protocol: Students will develop a communication protocol for the interaction between the optical detection system and the main processor, and also between the lighting system and the main processor. Objective 5 - Data processing and pattern analysis: For data processing, students will create measures for rectifying data with unwanted noise by using filtering and thresholding techniques. The edited data will be processed further to identify patterns via machine learning techniques. Objective 6 - Data visualization and Human-machine interface: Students will design the human-machine interface (HMI) to visualize the results and provide relevant information such as historical data and real-time results. Manufacturing Engineering Technology: The key objectives that the students from this stream will be working on are briefly described as follows: Objective 1 – Design of Remote DNA Biosensor: Student will understand the project and develop design alternatives for a remote DNA biosensor with emphasis on functionality, manufacturability and sustainability. Objective 2 – Material Selection: Students will consider material options for their designs. Material selection will be based on the criteria identified by the students. Objective 3 – Manufacturing: In this objective the students will conduct final design review, manufacture and perform quality checks of the prototype. Objective 4 - Testing: Use the prototype for testing. Evaluate the results from the tests. Successes and complications at this stage could be used to fine tune the design/manufacturing process.

4 Expected Learning The project is implemented as part of the course in the three streams. In doing so, it has been ensured that the learning objectives of the course are consistent with the objectives described in the previous section. Specifically, the learning objectives to be met in the three streams are as follows: Biotechnology: The key learning objectives for the students include: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Understanding and designing the PCR primer. Separating molecular mixtures. Purification of DNA and protein from biological sources. Surface modification and operation of biosensors. Data collection and interpretation.

Automation Engineering Technology: The key learning objectives for the students in this stream include:

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Understand the principles of project management. Designing and developing lighting systems. Programming a microcontroller. Designing and developing data acquisition systems and data analysis. Developing communication protocols. Designing and developing human machine interface.

Manufacturing Engineering Technology: The key learning objectives for the students in this stream include: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Addressing assembly and manufacturing at early stages. Reverse engineering. Understanding and applying material selection processes. Understanding and applying manufacturing processes and challenges in transferring design concepts to manufacturing. 5. Understanding and applying the testing protocols and formal part approval process. For students in all three streams, the entire set of objectives will be addressed in a phased manner through a duration of 13 weeks. To ensure continuous progress, students will be reporting key milestones on a regular basis. In addition to this, students will be assessed regularly on the progress made (on a weekly basis) using PowerPoint presentations, reports, functionality tests etc.

5 Summary and Conclusion A project-centric learning environment is being integrated into the curriculum at the Walter Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology at McMaster University. The initiative will be rolled out in Fall 2019 and will be training up to 20 students in a multi-disciplinary environment. Specifically, students from three different streams, namely, biotechnology, manufacturing engineering technology and automation engineering technology will be working as a team to develop a device that can detect and quantify antibiotics in edible meat products. To accomplish this goal, the students from each stream will be given a set of objectives that they will achieve over a duration of 13 weeks. The students will be mentored by faculty members with expertise in the respective areas so that the objectives are achieved in a time-bound manner. The project itself is implemented as part of a particular course whose learning objectives are consistent with the objectives outlined for the project. Their progress will be routinely assessed using a combination of PowerPoint presentations, reports as well as functionality tests of the prototypes that they design. By undertaking these projects, the students not only develop a good understanding of the principles of their subject but are also exposed to working in multi-disciplinary environment and can hone their interpersonal skills as well as ability to adapt to an industrial setting wherein multi-disciplinary teams routinely work in solving different problems. In addition to their discipline training, by engaging in competency-based learning, the students are trained to be critical and creative thinkers, the ultimate goal of university education.

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A Problem Solving Based Approach to Learn Engineering Mathematics Nasim Muhammad(&) and Seshasai Srinivasan W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada {nasimm,ssriniv}@mcmaster.ca

Abstract. In this work we present the outcome of a problem solving based approach interlaced with different frequency of assessments as well as the duration of the course in a first year engineering mathematics subject. The experiment was performed with about 280 students split into various cohorts. For each cohort, the content was the same, i.e., differential calculus and its application. In the problem solving based strategy that was used in the cohorts, the students participated in weekly problem solving sessions wherein a set of questions were solved by students in groups of 3–5. The students were allowed to interact with their peers, the instructor as well as a qualified teaching assistant. The weekly problems were selected such that the students had to routinely recall the concepts and apply them to solve problems, thereby reinforcing the concepts and aiding in learning the material better. By using the problem solving based approach, the performance of the students, assessed via periodic term tests, was very satisfactory and much better than the average first year score of the students across all the courses that they take. Imbibing the same learning environment into the cohorts that went through the content in 6 weeks resulted in a 10% decrease in the performance of the students, indicating that there is an incubation period during which the learning happens that cannot be fast-tracked. Finally, in determining whether this can be improved by administering more frequent tests in the 6-week format, forcing students to be more regular in their studies in the 6-week course, it was found that the gains are only marginal. Keywords: Problem solving


Mathematics
Classroom practice

1 Introduction Earning an undergraduate engineering degree from a university typically requires students to take over 40 courses over a 4 year time period. The typical format includes teaching foundational courses in the early years that for the basis for specialized courses to be taught in the latter years. One of the most ubiquitous tools used to assess and determine progress of students’ learning, to promote the students to the next level, is using periodic tests and exams. While the type and frequency of assessments vary from one course to the other, and between different universities, it is still considered a very good measure of the students’ understanding of key concepts that will enable the instructors to certify them to progress into the next level of courses. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 839–848, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_81

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In the prelude to such assessments, students could experience a variety of learning settings. These include active learning [1–9], inquiry-based learning [10–12], challenge-based learning [13], co-operative and small group learning [14–19], problem based learning [10, 20–24] and undergraduate research-based learning [25]. In the course pertaining to this work, we have employed a problem solving based learning environment to deliver the concepts of differential calculus to the first year engineering students in a 4-year undergraduate program. Thus, the main objective of this work is to describe the implementation details of a problem-solving based approach to teach an undergraduate course in mathematics, and the outcomes of this procedure that has been followed in the course. The learning environment is an ecosystem wherein the students learn the concepts from the instructor as well as their peers. To ensure retention of the material that is being delivered in the learning environment, the concepts are reinforced by regularly providing students with a set of problems to solve. More precisely, the problems were such that the students had to repeatedly recall and apply the concepts to find the solutions to the problems. Further details of the implementation of this approach inside the classroom are described in Sect. 2.3. Apart from these, there is also an evaluation of the time lines along which the concepts are taught. Specifically, two time lines have been considered, namely, a 6 week and a 12 week duration, for teaching the concepts of differential calculus. Finally, there is also an evaluation of the assessment frequency on student performance.

2 Methods The pedagogical investigation was performed for an undergraduate course in differential calculus taught in the first year of an undergraduate engineering program. The students enrolling in these courses are eventually majoring in one of the following three disciplines: Automotive Engineering Technology, Automation Engineering Technology or Biotechnology. A total of about 280 students spread over various cohorts have been studied to (i) determine the outcome of using problem solving based approach to teach differential calculus (ii) understand the effect of the duration over which the concepts are taught and (iii) understand the effect of the frequency of assessments on the performance of students. 2.1

Course Design

The course material that is being considered in this study includes principles and applications of differential calculus and the foundational mathematical concepts that are needed to learn differential calculus. The concepts were offered in two different time lines. In the 12 week time line, the class met twice every week for 2 h each. In the 6 week format of the course, the class met twice a week for 3 h each. It must be stated that the concepts covered were the same in both formats. To assist in retention and learning of concepts, regular worksheets were introduced inside the classroom. As part of this, the students were required to solve a

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predetermined set of problems and return the solutions as part of their assignments. The emphasis in conducting these in-class worksheets was on ensuring that the students are able to understand the underlying principles and solve the problems. To this end, they were allowed to interact with the instructor, an on-site teaching assistant (TA) as well as their peers. The questions in the worksheets encompass three key themes, namely, reinforcement, spacing and feedback. Collectively, these themes aid in learning and long-term retention as follows: (a) Reinforcement: By repeatedly recalling the concepts from the memory, the information is more permanently stored in the memory. (b) Spacing: To aid the retention of the material for a longer duration of time, the key concepts are practiced repeatedly through various worksheets, thereby spanning a longer time. (c) Instant Feedback: An immediate corrective feedback from the instructor, TA and/or peers inside the classroom can help in better understanding of the material more effectively. The number of problems in each worksheet varied and depend upon the topic. They could range anywhere between 7–15 problems. Students typically spend most of the inclass time to ensure that they are well equipped with the concepts that are needed to complete the entire worksheet, test their abilities on several questions, and ensure that they are confident of being able to finish the remaining problems outside the class on their own. Subsequently, they are given off-site hours to complete the remaining questions outside the classroom and submit it to an assigned dropbox. Typically, students complete anywhere between 70–75% of the problems assigned in the worksheet inside the classroom and solve the remaining outside the class. 2.2

Materials

As mentioned earlier, the course considered in this study contains topics in differential calculus. Specifically, the topics that are covered include: Foundational Mathematics: • • • •

Foundational algebra. Linear and quadratic equations. Functions and graphing. Trigonometric identities and equations.

Differential Calculus: • • • • •

Limits and continuity. Derivatives of functions and rules of differentiation. Implicit and higher order differentiation. Application of derivatives. Partial and higher order derivatives.

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The student progress was monitored via periodic term tests and a comprehensive final exam. Two variations were investigated in this study, with respect to the term test. In this, in the first format, 4 equally spaced term tests were administered during the course. In the second format, 2 equally spaced term tests were administered, reducing the number of assessments by 50%. Each term test was for a duration of 1 h and 45 min. 2.3

Procedure

Each week, half the class time was used for introducing the concepts and exemplifying it with some problems. Subsequently, for the remaining half of the time, the problemsolving based approach was introduced inside the classroom to promote self-learning, aiding in better understanding and long-term retention of the concepts. Specifically, in these problem-solving sessions, the students were divided into groups of 3–5 students and were assigned a set of problems that had to be solved. The students were allowed to collaborate with each other and ask the instructor or the TA (available inside the classroom) to help clarify the concepts or verify the solution. Thus, the students were able to get an instantaneous feedback on several questions, rectify the conceptual errors, and master the concepts before the end of the class. To ensure this, throughout the lecture, the instructor and a qualified teaching assistant were available who could interact with the students in a one-on-one basis. During these interactions, the task of the instructor as well as the TA was to evaluate the understanding of the concepts by each student in that particular group. While majority of the problems (between 70–75%) in the worksheets were solved in this collective manner, the remaining questions were assigned to be completed outside the class. The students would hand in their completed worksheets to a dropbox on a predetermined day. The questions in these worksheets were such that the students would be required to recall concepts taught in previous weeks to solve the current problem. This ensured that they had to repeatedly recall the concepts thereby reinforcing the principles. Further, for each topic, this exercise spanned over several worksheets, introducing adequate spacing for the repeated recalling and reinforcement of the concepts. These, coupled with an instant feedback inside the classroom, are aimed at clarifying concepts immediately to avoid etching wrong concepts in the students’ minds. The student progress was evaluated using term tests and the final exam. These assessments were in a closed-book format. While the term tests primarily evaluated the students’ understanding of the concepts, focusing on the lower levels of Bloom’s taxonomy [26], the final exam also included the assessments on the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. As mentioned earlier, the progress of a total of about 280 students were studied, who enrolled in various cohorts based on a timetable that suited their schedule.

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Score (%)

Diff. Calc. 84 82 80 78 76 74 72 70 68 66 64

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Fund. Math

82

75 71

70

1

2

Cohort Fig. 1. Student performance in the assessments in a problem solving based education in two different cohorts.

3 Results and Discussion The performance of the students in various cohorts in the regular 12 week session have been summarized in Fig. 1. Each Diff. Calc. score bar in this figure represents the average of the term tests for a respective cohort that assess the content of differential calculus. On the other hand the Fund. Math. score represents the average performance of the respective cohort in the foundational concepts needed to learn differential calculus. We have deliberately separated the term test pertaining to the foundational topics described in Sect. 2.2 because these are pre-requisite knowledge that the students are expected to acquire while being admitted into the program and as such are just being reviewed in the class. As seen in Fig. 1, the students are well prepared in terms of the foundational math, with a typical score of about 78%. However, not much can be inferred from this high score using the problem-solving based methodology because these are concepts that most of the students should have mastered in their high school curriculum. The more interesting result is the performance of the students in the topics of differential calculus. As seen in Fig. 1, the typical average cohort score is around 71%. This is quite respectable because these concepts represent a steep gradient from what they learn in high school, requiring a dedicated effort to learn and master. In the 1st year undergraduate program wherein the typical score of the student in the W Booth School of Engg. Pract. and Tech. is around 66%, this can be regarded as a very good performance by the students. The performance of the students can be directly attributed to three key themes integrated into the problem-solving sessions in the classroom. Put differently, repeated recalling of the concepts over a long period of time helps reinforce and cement the

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concepts. The timely interventions inside the classroom and the valuable feedback that the students get in collaborating with the faculty member, TA and peers, helps them avoid learning the concepts incorrectly. The continuous exercise inside the classroom fosters confidence in the students to solve problems and as a result, they perform well during the assessments. 3.1

Effect of Course Time lines

The problem solving based approach is evidently a good strategy to be employed for a productive learning environment for the entry level undergraduate course in mathematics. This can be claimed based on the fact that the average performance of the students in this course is around 71% whereas the average score of the students in the first year courses are typically around 66%. To understand the effect of the duration over which the three themes of reinforcement, spacing and instant feedback should be employed in the course, two different time lines were considered. In the standard offering, reflected in the results presented so far, the topics are covered over a duration of 12 weeks. As a variant of this, the same topics were taught over a duration of 6 weeks, by meeting more frequently with the students in each week. While three cohorts with a total of 111 students were taught the course in the 12-week format, 138 students took the course with the 6-week format.

Table 1. Effect of the duration of the course. # Cohort size Duration (weeks) Avg. score (%) 1 57 12 70 2 54 12 71 Average 71 4 17 6 60 5 34 6 54 6 32 6 60 7 55 6 66 Average 61

The performance of the students in the different cohorts are summarized in Table 1. As seen in this table, in the 12 week format, the average performance of the student is 71%. On the other hand, when the duration of the course is shrunk to 6 weeks, the performance of the students significantly decreases, averaging about 61%. This is attributed to the fact that in the 6 week format, there is a shortage of time for adequately reinforcing the concepts. Put differently, there is some time needed for learning to happen and this cannot be fast tracked despite employing optimal learning techniques such as the problem solving based approach. There are potentially other contributing factors such as a student missing one class will easily lag and within weeks this adds to unsurmountable levels of difficulty, leading to very poor performance. One potential

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strategy to mitigate this is to enforce regular assessments that could ensure that students are making regular disciplined efforts to learn the material. This is discussed in the following section. 3.2

Effect of Assessment Frequency

It is well accepted that students who are regular and disciplined with respect to their commitments to a subject tend to perform well. One approach to enforce students being regular in their studies could be administering frequent assessments. We employed this in the 6 week format of the course to see if there is any improvement in the performance of the students. To this end, two cases were considered: In the first case only two term tests were administered and in the second case, four term tests were administered. The 6 week format of the course was chosen because of the poor performance of the students in this format (see Table 1). It must be noted that the course content remained the same in both cases.

Table 2. Effect of the frequency of assessments. # 1 2 3

Cohort size # of Assessments 17 2 34 2 32 2 Average 4 30 4 5 55 4 Average

Avg. score (%) 60 54 60 58 53 66 61

The outcome of the two cases administered to a set of cohorts is summarized in Table 2. As seen in this table, there is only a marginal improvement by about 3% in the performance of the students when more frequent assessments are administered. The significant improvements are not observed and can be attributed to the fact that despite being regular, there is some amount of time that is needed for learning to happen and in a 6 week format, there is not enough time for the students to master the concepts despite being regular in their studies. Put differently, the themes applied in the problem solving based method is more effective if employed over a longer duration of time.

4 Summary and Conclusion A problem solving based learning environment has been employed in a differential calculus course taught in a first year undergraduate engineering program at the W Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology of McMaster University. The strategy involves use of collaborative problem solving sessions inside the classroom along with peers, instructor and a qualified teaching assistant. In doing so, the problem

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sets have been designed such that three themes, namely, reinforcement, spacing and instant feedback have been integrated in these sessions. While the former two assist with learning and long-term retention of the material, the last theme aids in ensuring that prompt corrective measures are available to prevent wrong concepts from being ingrained at the end of the classroom sessions. The performance of about 280 students in assessments administered in the form of term tests has been studied and the following has been found: 1. The problem solving based approach enables students to perform well in the course with an average score of about 71% (see Fig. 1). This is considered a very satisfactory performance given that the students enrolled in the school have an incoming average of about 80% and their average score across all the courses in the 1st year is around 66%. 2. While the problem solving based approach is a good strategy to assist with learning, it is not very effective when it is applied in an accelerated curriculum environment. This was established when we compared the effect of employing problem solving based approach in a course that was taught over 12 weeks versus the same course taught in 6 weeks. The average score of the students drop by about 10% in the latter case and can be attributed to the fact that irrespective of the effectiveness of the learning environment, there is some incubation time for the learning to happen, and it cannot be fast tracked even by using effective means such as problem solving based approaches. 3. To validate the above point as the sole reason for the 10% drop and to rule out the possibility of students simply not committing themselves adequately to the course in the 6 week format, more frequent assessments were administered to enforce regular student commitment and the effect of frequency of assessments were studied. In comparing cohorts that which were assessed two times versus the cohorts that were assessed four times, it was found that the higher frequency of assessment only enhanced the average score by about 3%. However, since this assessment was just made with a small sample size between the two assessment environments, it is only appropriate to concluded that the improvement, if anything, is marginal. In summary, the problem-solving based learning environment is an effective approach to enhance student learning. Further, it is very effective when the courses are offered at the normal university curriculum pace spanning about 12 weeks.

References 1. Beichner, R.: The student-centered activities for large enrollment undergraduate programs (SCALE-UP) project (2007) 2. Burrowes, P.A.: A student-centered approach to teaching general biology that really works: lord’s constructivist model put to a test. Am. Biol. Teach. 65, 491–502 (2003). https://doi. org/10.2307/4451548 3. Cummings, K., Marx, J., Ronald, T., Dennis, K.: Evaluating innovation in studio physics. Am. J. Phys. 67, S38–S44 (1999)

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4. Freeman, S., O’Connor, E., Parks, J.W., Cunningham, M., Hurley, D., Haak, D., Dirks, C., Wenderoth, M.P.: Prescribed active learning increases performance in introductory biology. CBE Life Sci. Educ. 6, 132–139 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.06-09-0194 5. Hoellwarth, C., Moelter, M.J., Knight, R.D.: A direct comparison of conceptual learning and problem solving ability in traditional and studio style classrooms. Am. J. Phys. 73, 459–462 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1119/1.1862633 6. Knight, J.K., Wood, W.B.: Teaching more by lecturing less. Cell Biol. Educ. 4, 298–310 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1187/05-06-0082 7. Redish, E.F., Saul, J.M., Steinberg, R.N.: On the effectiveness of active-engagement microcomputer-based laboratories. Am. J. Phys. 65, 45–54 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1119/1. 18498 8. Sidhu, G., Srinivasan, S.: An intervention-based active-learning strategy to enhance student performance in mathematics. Int. J. Pedagog. Teach. Educ. 2, 277–288 (2018) 9. Srinivasan, S., Centea, D.: An active learning strategy for programming courses. In: Proceedings of 2018 International Conference Interactive Mobile Communication Technologies Learning (IMCL2018), Hamilton, pp. 21–30 (2018) 10. Prince, M.J., Felder, R.M.: Inductive teaching and learning methods: definitions, comparisons, and research bases. J. Eng. Educ. 95, 123–138 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.21689830.2006.tb00884.x 11. Farrell, J.J., Moog, R.S., Spencer, J.N.: A guided-inquiry general chemistry course. J. Chem. Educ. 76, 570 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1021/ed076p570 12. Lewis, S.E., Lewis, J.E.: Departing from lectures: an evaluation of a peer-led guided inquiry alternative. J. Chem. Educ. 82, 135 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1021/ed082p135 13. Roselli, R.J., Brophy, S.P.: Effectiveness of challenge-based instruction in biomechanics. J. Eng. Educ. 95, 311–324 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2006.tb00906.x 14. Springer, L., Stanne, M.E., Donovan, S.S.: Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: a meta-analysis. Rev. Educ. Res. 69, 21–51 (1999). https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543069001021 15. Hake, R.R.: Interactive-engagement versus traditional methods: a six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. Am. J. Phys. 66, 64–74 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1119/1.18809 16. Wage, K.E., Buck, J.R., Wright, C.H.G., Welch, T.B.: The signals and systems concept inventory. IEEE Trans. Educ. 48, 448–461 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2005.849746 17. Buck, J.R., Wage, K.E.: Active and cooperative learning in signal processing courses. IEEE Signal Process. Mag. 22, 76–81 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2005.1406489 18. Prince, M.: Does active learning work? a review of the research. J. Eng. Educ. 93, 223–231 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2004.tb00809.x 19. Terenzini, P.T., Cabrera, A.F., Colbeck, C.L., Parente, J.M., Bjorklund, S.A.: Collaborative learning vs. lecture/discussion: students’ reported learning gains. J. Eng. Educ. 90, 123–130 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2001.tb00579.x 20. Capon, N., Kuhn, D.: What’s so good about problem-based learning? Cogn. Instr. 22, 61–79 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532690Xci2201_3 21. Dochy, F., Segers, M., Van den Bossche, P., Gijbels, D.: Effects of problem-based learning: a meta-analysis. Learn. Instr. 13, 533–568 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959-4752(02) 00025-7 22. Centea, D., Srinivasan, S.: A comprehensive assessment strategy for a PBL environment. Int. J. Innov. Res. Educ. Sci. 3, 364–372 (2016) 23. Gijbels, D., Dochy, F., Van den Bossche, P., Segers, M.: Effects of problem-based learning: a meta-analysis from the angle of assessment. Rev. Educ. Res. 75, 27–61 (2005). https://doi. org/10.3102/00346543075001027

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24. Kolb, D.A.: Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, 2nd edn. Pearson Education Inc. (2015) 25. Hunter, A.-B., Laursen, S.L., Seymour, E.: Becoming a scientist: the role of undergraduate research in students’ cognitive, personal, and professional development. Sci. Educ. 91, 36– 74 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20173 26. Bloom, B.S.: The 2 sigma problem: the search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educ. Res. 13, 4–16 (1984). https://doi.org/10.2307/1175554

Poster: The Usage of Open Educational Resources and Practices in Training Engineers for the IT Sector Gulnara Fatykhovna Khasanova(&) and Renat Nazipovich Zaripov Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The usage of open educational resources and practices is especially important in training engineers for the IT sector because of students’ advanced technological skills and engagement. The study examined the possibility of using quasi-professional assignments that implement the principles of openness in the course of Psychology and Pedagogy in training engineers for the ICT sector. To achieve the goal, difficulties and barriers in the applying the principles of openness in the educational process were studied. In the training of engineers for the IT sector, a set of authentic project-type quasi-professional assignments was developed, in which students played the roles of researchers, producers, rather than consumers, and created reusable educational resources. Keywords: Open educational resources and practices the IT sector


Training engineers for

1 Introduction “Learning Throughout Life” has become the slogan of the modern information society. Open educational resources present challenges to the institutions of formal education. In the context of global informatization, the education institutions are to create an updated learning environment that helps to assimilate large scales of knowledge and to train learners in the required competencies. Post-secondary educational institutions reorient to the individualization of education and the development of students independent cognitive activity and initiative as well as the aspiration for self-development. Rapidly developing information technologies impose new requirements on the training of IT sector specialists, dictating the need to develop and implement new pedagogical approaches. The core of the IT sector specialist’s information competence includes automated skills of transforming information being developed by the Computer Science course and other specialized disciplines. However, the integrative nature of the professional tasks future specialist should be able to implement suggests that training students in the IT specialist information competence should synthesize knowledge from various disciplines, including psychological and pedagogical ones.

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2 The Role of Psychological and Pedagogical Disciplines in the Development of the Competence of IT Specialists It is necessary to determine how psychological and pedagogical disciplines included in the syllabus of training IT specialists could help students specializing in the IT sector obtain essential knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for their future work practice. Meanwhile, new psychological and pedagogical issues are emerging in the educational process caused by informatization of education [1]. The spontaneous use of ICT, which is not justified by educational needs, can reduce the communicative potential of the educational process; impersonal “communication” with a computer can completely replace face-to-face communication of participants. As for the aspect of personal development, the concentration of students’ attention may weaken; the tendency towards algorithmic activity may increase. All this creates the task of integrating didactic and information technologies in the educational process. To meet the above challenges, we have relied in our study on the use of open educational resources in teaching the Psychology and Pedagogy course. The experiment was conducted on the second year of full-time “Computer Science and Computer Engineering” and “Systems Analysis and Management” bachelor’s course. The rapidity of IT innovation changes compels IT specialists to increase constantly their professional knowledge, to learn throughout life, including in the internet, and skills of working with OER could be important for this. IT specialists should realize how their career depend on continuing education, and be aware of new learning technologies. The skills employers look for in graduates of the higher education institutions also include the ability to work in teams and effectively interact with the social and information ecosystem [2].

3 Characteristics of OER Open educational resources (OER) are widely used in education. OER include educational materials that are freely available. The term “open” is used commonly to refer to documents and media that can be freely accessed, reused, revised, remixed, redistributed with no costs and no or limited restrictions [3]. In connection with the development of OER, the “open pedagogies” expand. Open pedagogies involve communication and cooperation on the issue of educational content, including feedback from partners, collective inquiries and team problem solving, students’ acquisition of practical experience through participation in real practice projects. Education is treated as a process without boundaries, start and finish, being driven by a student [4]. OER relate to a broader concept of “open practices” [5], which, in addition, includes other activities that support the ideology of free access and sharing: free use software, open publications, open teaching, and networking forms of interaction. Open practices are often considered integral components of open education.

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Open pedagogies reflect the humanistic orientation of the educational process. The model of open pedagogies presents a cognitive environment focused on a person, capable of self-organization, acquisition of knowledge, and mastering the methodology of their use in everyday life and professional activity. Open pedagogies constitute conditions for students’ most complete self-realization in the information society. OER are a flexible tool that allows building new relationships between students and the information they deal with in the learning process. The understanding of knowledge is transformed: it is no longer something that a student has to load into his/her brain, but something that is continuously generated and corrected by a student. Thus, students are included in the process of creating and changing knowledge they master in the learning process [6]. The use of OER allows one to change the vector of the entire educational process from purely performing actions to the organization of productive reflective mental activity and the dominance of forms of independent work in the process of developing information competence. Based on the principles of open pedagogies, courses do not remain just repositories of content, but can promote expansion of the educational information environment beyond the classroom. The inclusion of OER into the educational process shifts the emphasis from content to communication, gives students the opportunity to manage their own learning, and contributes to promoting authentic assessment [7] and limiting the use of “disposable assignments” [3]. OER help students see learning material as something that they can design and create, thus contributing to the integration of technological innovations into the learning process. In addition, OER meet the changing information needs of today’s users. Information overloads lead to a change in the formats in which people consume information. Visual communication supersedes a textual one, while interactive and animated images replace static pictures. Due to the wide multimedia capabilities, OER can combine graphic, textual, speech, music, video, photo, and other information. Thus, open educational resources provide the ability to handle large volumes of information; implement quick search and access to the necessary information; simultaneously receive information presented in various forms – visual, auditory, etc.; visualize complex phenomena and processes; objectively and qualitatively assess the knowledge of students. Meanwhile, the availability of information resources provokes such a problem as unfair borrowing of information. Practice shows that plagiarism in educational activities grows in parallel with increasing openness and availability of information resources [8]. At the same time, students often do not possess information culture, knowledge of copyright on intellectual property, ethical standards governing the use of information, are not familiar with the rules for citing copyright texts, and do not realize their own responsibility for compliance with these rules and regulations. We assumed that the inclusion of OER in the process of studying the Psychology and Pedagogy discipline would contribute to the improvement of this state of affairs.

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4 Methods of OER Usage in Teaching Psychology and Pedagogy The use of OER in the process of teaching Psychology and Pedagogy was aimed at ensuring positive motivation of students for learning activities, and increasing cognitive activity and information competence of future bachelors of IT. Developing students’ skills of working with OER was intended to enhance students’ obtaining of: the ability to navigate and make grounded decisions in the context of continuous growth of information and the emergence of new ICTs; skills to apply them to quasi-professional and educational assignments; skills of networking and cooperation with peers in the educational process; the ability not only to assimilate the knowledge gained, but also to generate new things, independently acquire knowledge, carry out self-education and self-development in the process of higher education. The topics under study were not delivered to students in a “ready-for-consumption” shape; instead, the learners were to search information using recommended sources, as well as OER. Students were encouraged to develop new educational resources by synthesizing resources studied and integrating them into interactive digital educational resources. Quasi-professional assignments were used, including those in which future bachelors were supposed to develop new software tools of free access. The usage of “disposable” tasks was limited. Learners implemented research projects, in which they had to independently plan and apply solutions to quasi-professional issues. Assignments and projects were fulfilled both individually and in groups. Such methods and terms as joint planning of studies, promoting an atmosphere of empathy and codialogue, the acquisition of network communication experience by students in quasiprofessional activities contributed the development of communicative competence. Students of experimental groups were offered assignments for extracurricular work, during which they were to create OER for later use by their peers in the educational process. Assignments included the creation, with the help of free-access software, of structural-logical schemes (mind maps), infographics, glossaries, interactive educational resource catalogs, and video scribing animations on specific topics of the discipline. While completing assignments, students were mastering the appropriate software. Recommendations on a software necessary for fulfilling assignments were available for learners, and they as well had the opportunity to choose similar software according to their own preferences. Network communications were conducted through the Google Drive cloud services – Google Jamboard, Google Forms, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides. Free access software VUE, Moovly, Canva, and others were also exploited. Students chose preferable forms of assignment - individual, in pairs or in groups of 3–4 people. The created educational resources were then made accessible to all students of the experimental groups who could use them in their study and preparation for the intermediate and final assessment on the course. In the course of fulfilling assignments, students were asked to search for OER available on the network for the issues being studied and use them when performing assignments. Students were required to include references to resources used in accordance with licensing rules, and assign free licenses from the Creative Commons list [9] to their completed assignments. After completing the collective assignments, the

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students described in the blogs the progress of their performance and the contribution of each participant. Readiness to use OER can be defined as an integrity of the human activity characteristics, including cognitive, motivation and value, and technological components. Indicators of the cognitive component are the following: understanding the prospects for the use of OER in professional activities; knowledge of the basic OEP search algorithms in the network; knowledge of the methods and mechanisms for obtaining new knowledge through the critical analysis and creative processing of OER; knowledge of issues of copyright protection and licensing requirements for the use of OOP and software products. The motivation and value component includes: the interest in the use of OER; understanding the importance of using OER in future professional activities; the desire to achieve competence in the field of technology work with OER; awareness of the responsibility for compliance with ethical and legal norms in the information environment. Indicators of the technological component are the following: the ability to carry out information search for OER; possession of technologies for the creation, reuse, revision, remixing, and redistribution of OER; skills of working with free access software; possession of network communication technologies in the process of solving problems.

5 Research Results The conducted pedagogical experiment showed high efficiency of the implementation of the method of using OER. Statistical processing of the results of experimental work showed the reliability of differences in the results of the final control after completing the study of the discipline between students of the experimental and control groups (p < 0.05). The effectiveness of the implemented methodology was most clearly manifested during measurements of changes in students of experimental groups of such indicators as “the ability to carry out information search for OER” (increase by 57%), “skills of working with free access software” (increase by 39%), “possession of network interaction technologies in the process of solving problems” (increase by 42%). At the same time, the lowest growth by 12% was registered in the indicator of “awareness of responsibility for compliance with ethical and legal norms in the information environment.” The general dynamics of indicators growth proved effective the implemented method of OER inclusion in teaching Psychology and Pedagogy. At the same time, the lowest increase in values occurred in the indicator of “understanding of the need to observe ethical and legal norms in the information environment.” This can be explained by the fact that, unlike the indicators of the technological component, which fix skills that can be formed quite quickly, the indicators of the motivation and value component belong to the sphere of the personality that changes much more slowly. Therefore, it is hardly possible to expect sharp dynamics in this indicator in just one semester, during which the study of the discipline continues. The study showed that the developed method of using OER in the educational process increases students interest in the future profession, forms a positive attitude to using OER in future professional activities, increases the ability to navigate the

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information environment and the level of knowledge of various types of free access software. The applied approach increases the ability and need for independent knowledge acquisition, which leads to the intensification of students’ learning activities and training in general. Acknowledgment. The publication is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

References 1. Barabanova, S.V., Kaybiyaynen, A.A., Kraysman, N.V.: Digitalization of education in the global context/Vysshee Obrazovanie v Rossii, 28(1), pp. 94–103 (2019) 2. Shageeva, F.T., Gorodetskaya, I.M., Khramov, V.Y.: Development of cross-cultural competence of engineering students as one of the key factors of academic and labor mobility. In: Proceedings of 2015 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2015, Italy, pp. 141–145. https://doi.org/10.1109/icl.2015.7318015 3. Wiley, D.: What is open pedagogy? (2013). https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/2975. Accessed 01 Jun 2019 4. Downes, S.: Models for sustainable open educational resources. Interdisc. J. e-Skills Lifelong Learn. 3, 029–044 (2017) 5. Ehlers, U.-D.: Extending the territory: from open educational resources to open educational practices. J. Open Flex. Distance Learn. 15, 1–10 (2011) 6. Galikhanov, M.F., Khasanova, G.F.: Faculty training for online teaching: roles, competences, contents. Vysshee Obrazovanie v Rossii, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 51–62 (2019) 7. Frey, B.B., Schmitt, V.L., Allen, J.P.: Defining authentic classroom assessment - practical assessment, research & evaluation. Pract. Assess. Res. Eval. 17, 1–18 (2012) 8. McGreal R.: Stealing the goose: copyright and learning. Int. Rev. Res. Open Distance Learn. 5 (2004) 9. Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/

Work-in-Progress: Industry 4.0 Production Line for Educational Use Multi Stage Production Plant and Interactive AR Model Robert Hauß(&), Gabriele Schachinger(&), and Gerald Kalteis(&) Technical Secondary College of Engineering, TGM, Wexstraße 19-23, 1200 Vienna, Austria {rhausz,gschachinger,gkalteis}@tgm.ac.at

Abstract. At federal secondary colleges of engineering (HTL) in Austria technical education is taught at a quite high level of ISCED 5. Despite mechanical engineering, design with industrial standard 3D programs being state of the art in industry and education, technologies using Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality (AR) have been established in the last year. This publication describes the introduction of a multistage production and assembly line on an Industry 4.0 level using the IoT platform ThingWorx. For the plant an AR model has been established where the digital twin of all products can be observed in real time. Keywords: Augmented Reality (AR)
Internet of Things (IoT)
Engineering education
Digital Twin

1 Introduction The technologies AR and IoT are integrated into the curriculum and daily engineering lessons of the Austrian HTL. Establishing the production line on the TGM and creating an AR model of this plant students are prepared for the requirements of industry regarding digitization.

2 Model of 4.0 Production Line 2.1

Description of the Production Line

To give students the possibility to get in contact with 4.0 production line during their education, a production plant was designed and built. The production plant consists of two CNC milling machines, five robots and a conveyor belt. The products are serving trays for sweets. On these manufactured trays sweets and a glass of lemonade are placed on different stages using three education robots.

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With the first CNC milling machine the basic body of the serving tray is produced by cutting this part from a raw material. An educational robot picks the produced tray form the machine up and puts it on the conveyor belt. This part is taken from the conveyor belt by the robot to do the second milling operation on this part. This is the milling of the deepening for the sweets in the tray. After finishing this production step, the part is placed back to the conveyor belt and driven to the first assembly station (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. CAD Model of the production line

On this, the produced serving tray is assembled with the sweet’s parts using a moveable robot. After finishing the loading the trays are moved to the second assembly station with the conveyor belt. On this, the tray is loaded with a glass of lemonade. This is provided by another industrial robot which has taken the glass from a storage and filled it up from a tap. Different types of pick and place robots (simple educational or professional industrial) are integrated and work on the assembly line. 2.2

AR Model

An AR model of the whole production plant has been created. This model is available for mobile devices as well as for Microsoft HoloLens. The cutting tool of the milling machines in the AR model move in three axes as the real model does. The data for the position of the axis are transmitted from the PLC (Process Logic Control) of the milling machine to the ThingWorx Server. These data are submitted to the ThingWorx server using different technologies. For this task the software package Kepware, which is a standard industry software, will be used for the most connections. Beside this way, other possibilities for transferring data, are established.

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To show the status of the vacuum sucking system, which is used to lift the trays, pressure switches are implemented in the vacuum air system. The presence of a tray on the robot is evaluated by a distance sensor. The connection to the ThingWorx server is established using the microcontroller Arduino. To display the actual position of the products on the conveyor belt in the AR model the position of the product is measured using a distance sensor and a Raspberry Pi. These values are transmitted to the IoT platform and are used to display the position of every product on the conveyor belt. For the main maintenance processes of the milling machines like lubrication of moving parts or change of tools the instructions are provided in the AR model. The confirmation for a carried-out maintenance can be done in the AR model (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. AR Model of the production line

2.3

Digital Twin

In this production line the Digital Twin (DT) concept is used in two ways. The first application of the DT concept is used as the very realistic model of the process current state and its behavior in interaction with the environment in the real world as stated in [1]. This is achieved by the fully animated AR model of the plant as described before. The effect of plant modification can be evaluated by adding machines in the AR model and generating a dataset to animate these machines. The digital twin will be used as an observation tool and as a tool for developing and simulation the production line. The second application of the DT concept is the digital representation of a realworld object with focus on the object itself [2]. This concept of a digital twin is realized by a dataset which is used to observe the status of the production of a serving tray at any time during the production process in the AR model itself as well as on a mashup.

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Development of the Plant

The following improvements will be done by students in the following years. These modifications of the plant will be done in project works in teams during the classes as well as task for their diploma theses. With these extensions of the plant in the school shall be a model for typical Industry 4.0 plants (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Communication of devices for Industry 4.0 production plant

The operation instructions for all machines of the plant shall be provided in the AR model. The operation of the plant for a user will only be possible after the acceptance of the operation instructions. Different user groups like operators, maintenance engineer or production manager will be established. The provided information in the AR model will be different for each user group. To enable the usage of operations and maintenance instructions the communication from mobile devices and the HoloLens to the IoT platform and the PLC has to be established. The maintenance instructions are animated sequences of dismounting and mounting procedures with additional text information as PDF files. These sequences are supplied to mobile devices as well as to 2D or 3D eyewear. In all cases the communication from the AR model to the IoT platform has to be established. To operate the production plant using the mobile devices or eyewear, the communication to the PLC system has to be enabled. The possibility to create failures in the system will be implemented. This feature gives the members of the maintenance group the chance to train the finding of failures. Creating failures gives also the opportunity to influence the productivity which will also be maintained in the AR model. These failures can be created e.g. by producing vibrations on the conveyor belt, by minimizing the vacuum air pressure for the lifters or by minimizing the air pressure for the air cylinders to fix the serving trays in the milling station.

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In the current stage of the development of the plant all produced trays have the same shape and are loaded with the same amount of sweets on identical places on the tray. With a connection to an ERP system like SAP the production of the tray will be done according the provided production plan. The produced serving trays will vary by the number of sweets and the position on the tray (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Screen shot of a dismounting instruction in the AR Model

3 Conclusion and Outlook The model of a production plant gives students the possibility to design and realize industry 4.0 systems in a practical way. Design and realization are done by students. The application of sensors on different parts of production plants and the multiple possibilities for transferring data to an IoT cloud can be learned in a very practical way. Students learn and understand the various concepts and the application of a digital twin of a system. In the next steps for different parts of the plant fully animated operations and maintenance instructions for all main parts of the plant will be established. To create these animations for the maintenance instructions the data form the CAD system are transferred to Creo Illustrate to create sequences. A sequence contains a variable number of steps like mounting or dismounting one or more screws, a cover or a flange. Additional information like the required tool or the tighten torque for every screw can be supplied for each of these steps. These sequences are part of the IoT model and therefore transferred to the IoT cloud. They can be started, stopped, replayed using buttons in the 2D IoT applications or gestures and voice commands if a HoloLens is in use.

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The first operation and maintenance instructions will be the mounting and dismounting of the milling and cutting tools of the CNC machines, the stepper motors for the slider and the related covers. The creation of these guides will be done by students. The plant will be extended with additional robots and a connection to an ERP system in the future.

References 1. Rosen, R., Von Wichert, G., Lo, G., Bettenhausen, K.D.: About the importance of autonomy and digital twins for the future of manufacturing. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 567–572 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2015.06.141 2. Canedo, A.: Industrial IoT lifecycle via digital twins. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh IEEE/ACM/IFIP International Conference on Hardware/Software Codesign System Synthesis, p. 29 (2016)

Teaching Based on Challenges: Academic Impact in the Industrial Networks Class Virgilio Vásquez López(&), Luis Mauro Ortega Gonzalez, and Agustin Vázquez Sánchez Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Carretera a Lago de Guadalupe km 3.5., Atizapán de Zaragoza, Estado de México, Mexico {vlopez,avs,lmortega}@tec.mx

Abstract. Programmable logic controllers PLC are the basic elements used in the course of Industrial Networks at the Tecnologico de Monterrey. These devices are widely used in the industry for automation and process control, so it is very convenient to learn to program them effectively. On the other hand, according to the IEC 61131-3 standard, there are five programming languages of which two of them are the least known: GRAFCET and Structured Text. One of the objectives of the course is to strengthen the competences related to the programming them, so the first two parts of the course Industrial networks, is focus on developing the skills in these two programming languages. This is achieved by introducing the methodology of teaching based on challenges. Keywords: Educational innovation text
Industrial networks


Challenges
PLC
Grafcet
Structured

1 Introduction Education has changed in the last decades. The traditional classes in which the teacher gives a monologue on his podium is no longer enough to keep the attention of the new generations of students: Millennial, Generation Y, etc. This has forced Universities to use new teaching-learning methods that are more effective in the learning process. Examples of this are mixed learning, the inverted classroom, storytelling, etc. However, not all of these learning methods can be adopted by a teacher and ensure success in the teaching process, since depending on teacher´s work style it can be adapted to a particular one. The teacher needs to identify his skills and competencies that he needs to be a good teacher and transmit his knowledge [4, 6]. On the other hand, and according to recent studies, students who practice what they learn retain that knowledge more than those who sit and receive information in the traditional way. Therefore, several authors consider that practical experiments should be present in all engineering careers [1, 3]. In addition to the above, the course instructors have had the opportunity to develop projects with the industry. These projects are related to the design of control and automation schemes in the refrigeration industry, as well as in the instrumentation and control of industrial furnaces. This industrial contact has allowed them to give training courses to industry personnel in © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 861–870, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_84

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Mexico in recent years. This experience with the industry allowed selecting the method of learning based on challenges, that is, small problems related to real industrial problems that the instructors have identified throughout their industrial contact. Based on the above, this paper analyzes the impact obtained in the students’ learning, as well as the evaluation that the students give to the teacher’s work, by changing the methodology used in the design and evaluation of the course. The way to evaluate changed from written exams to a teaching process based on practical methods and challenges. The tasks are reinforced with practical exercises in the laboratory and their partial exams were changed by challenges. These challenges are real problems that instructors have adapted to implement in the classroom. This strategy has been introduced systematically for four semesters. Adapting and improving the challenges by introducing problems detected that the Mexican industry suffers today.

2 Methodology of the Course The Industrial Networks course is taught in the sixth semester of the Mechatronics Engineering career at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. The Mechatronic Engineer degree is obtained after completing nine semesters. The maximum number of students that can enroll in this subject is 24, although in some groups the number may be lower. The class consists of 3 h a week and the tasks and exercises are solved in the laboratory in the form of extra-class. The objective of the course is to learn and analyze the different industrial communication protocols, topologies and architectures. The central element of communication networks are programmable logic controllers (PLC). These devices are programmed and configured to establish reliable and secure communication in the industrial network. Students, who take this course, have knowledge of topics such as electricity, electronics, automation and control. The instructors of the course take advantage of this level of knowledge to perform exercises that integrate them. The course begins with an introduction to industrial networks, mentioning the existing protocols in the industry, the advantages and disadvantages of them [5]. Subsequently, an introduction to programming languages is provided in accordance with IEC 61131-3 standards [2]. The IEC standard defines the standards of three graphic languages and two textual languages for PLC: • • • • •

Diagram of contacts (LD - Ladder Diagram), graphic. Function block diagram (FBD - Function Block Diagram), graphic. Sequential function blocks (SFC - Sequential Function Chart), graphic. Structured text (ST - Structured Text), textual. Instruction list (IL - Instruction List), textual.

This course emphasizes the use of Grafcet and structured text. The reason for programming in these languages is that they are very little known and are very powerful tools for programming high level languages. The most known and used programming language worldwide is Ladder or Ladder language for a matter of end user knowledge. The Ladder is an appropriate language, but the current CPUs, much more powerful than those of yesteryear, can allow much more complex operations, and there the structured text is much more flexible in programming. On the other hand, Grafcet is

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a functional diagram that describes the processes to be automated, taking into account the actions to be carried out, and the intermediate processes that cause these actions. Since one of the objectives of the course is to strengthen the competences related to PLC programming, a series of exercises and tasks are carried out in the laboratory. The evaluation of the tasks consists of the functional delivery of the exercise and a checklist is used to review the essential points of the configuration and programming of the PLC. These practical activities allow the student to review and correct the programming done before delivering the homework, as well as to prove his/ her ability in PLC programming by self-evaluating their performance. The objectives of these practical activities are two: to reinforce what has been learned in the theoretical sessions and to prepare the students to solve the partial exams of the course. In conclusion, the information and activities of the course are presented in an appropriate manner, both in the sequence of activities and in the organization. The following points highlight the main changes that have been made in the course: 1. The new material introduced in the course refers to previous knowledge. 2. The examples and activities are always related to industrial examples. 3. Theory and practice relationship, alternating theoretical sessions with laboratory applications. What is learned in classes is applied immediately, with clear, concrete examples and with industrial applications. 4. Classes are enriched by inviting the graduates of the institution working in the areas related to the course. This motivates students to work and prepare with greater effort since it observes the importance of this topic for professional performance. These changes in the teaching methodology have been implemented for 2 years (four semesters) step by step. The decision to introduce these changes was based mainly on the comments made by the students in the Opinion Survey to System Students (ECOA, by its initials in Spanish) [7]. The objective of ECOA is to obtain fast, reliable and unique information from the opinions that Tecnológico de Monterrey students have about their courses, professors, managers and services offered by their Campus. The institutional survey is applied to all students of the Technological System two weeks before concluding the semester. Table 1 shows the comments before introducing the changes in the teaching methodology. The students indicate in their comments the lack of practices in the subject. This point was one of the most important and influential to consider the change in the teaching-learning strategy based on challenges. The Institutional Survey shows favorable results regarding the teaching-learning methodology implemented. Some of the favorable opinions and unfavorable opinions are shown in Table 2. These comments were obtained directly from the results of the survey and were translated literally into English. Table 1. Comments before changing the teaching strategy In general he is a good teacher, however I feel that the class can be improved a little, if one day he dedicates to theory and introduces laboratory work so that the concepts are better The first weeks of this course when we did not go to the laboratory, everything was much more abstract. Everything improves greatly when we started doing those practices

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Favourable opinions Excellent teacher, proposes very challenging and interesting activities Very good class, I learned a lot and I would like to continue studying in the field of automation, a very good teacher and I am inspired to work and work harder Very practical and knows a lot, I really like the applications that it gives Very good teacher, with great mastery of the subject. He always mentions applications of all the knowledge seen in class

Unfavourable opinions There are few evaluations and this means that if one fails in an evaluation, it has a strong impact on the rating Yes, he is the only teacher who gives the subject

On the other hand, the evaluation of the course is divided into three sections: first and second partial, final period. The course lasts 48 h divided into 16 weeks. The class is 3 h a week. The methodology is applied in the first two parts of the course. In both periods, there are 7 weeks of classes to apply the methodology. The last part of the course, which includes two weeks, concludes with the review of the topics of the industrial networks. In addition, graduates from the same institution and who work in related areas, are invited to talk about their work experiences. This motivates the students because it shows the importance that this subject has for their professional life. In the next section, a description is made of the exercises performed in the first and second partial. 2.1

Project 1. First Period

The first part is to automate a station in the manufacturing cell of Amatrol´s industrial hands-on Mechatronics training [8]. The work teams are shown a video of the operation of the machines. The challenge is to replicate the correct operation considering the different ways of executing the automation process. In the programming task, they use the GRAFCET language and the GEMMA guide [9]. The work teams are made up of three or four members. The teacher selects the members at random. In fact, based on the students’ academic records, their averages are revised and the teams are made up of a student with a high, low and medium level. This prevents students from selecting their friends to form their teams. The objective of this selection is to form a true cooperative work and to learn to work in teams despite the differences that exist between the members. In previous classes, the professor gives the theory of Grafcet and the GEMMA Guide. Six hours are devoted to the theoretical part and six hours to the practical part of the topics. Two tasks are also considered, which are carried out in extra class, one for each subject in which they perform an exercise that reinforces the learning of these topics. The delivery of the task is done in the Laboratory where the correct functioning of the process is shown. They have a week for the delivery of the exercises. In the task,

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teamwork and individual work are evaluated. Teamwork is evaluated by means of a checklist, where the PLC configuration and programming process is reviewed. The individual work is evaluated by requesting the student to make changes in the PLC programming. This developed work serves as the basis for the project of the first period. The Amatrol manufacturing cell consists of seven stations. After forming the teams, the work stations are raffled. The operational videos and manuals of the stations are delivered and from that moment they have fifteen days to deliver their exam. Figure 1 shows one of the stations and [10] shows a video of the equipment’s operation.

Fig. 1. Workstation number 3 of the Amatrol cell

Each team must study their workstation and, according to the video and the equipment manual • • • • • • • • •

Describe the operation of the machine and its components. Identify the connections of the sensors and actuators with the PLC, that is, pin-out Agree the work schedules with the members of the team. Agree with the teacher the schedules for the advice and show the progress of the project. Program the base sequence of the machine. Identify the modes of operation and shutdown of the machine based on the GEMMA Guide. Program the different operating modes and stop the machine. Implement the programs. Writing the report and develop a video demonstrating the operation of the machine.

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This examination of the first partial is evaluated as follows: • 50% delivery of the machine. All modes of operation requested according to the GEMMA Guide. This is evaluated by considering a checklist to check the correct operation of the machine. • 20% Delivery of the written report and operation video • 10% Self-evaluation report and co-evaluation of the performance of each team member. Each student delivers this individually. • 20% Individual evaluation. Students modify the program according to the teacher’s instructions. The machine after the changes, must work correctly. This work corresponds to 50% of the evaluation of the first period. The remaining is made up of the delivery of tasks 30% and 20% corresponding to quizzes performed during the evaluation period. 2.2

Project 2. Second Period

The second evaluation consists of solving a problem of regulatory control. Figure 2 shows the workstation used in this second test. The process to be controlled is a pneumatic system of the FESTO brand and the control schemes are implemented using the structured programming language in a PLC of the SIEMENS brand. As in the first period, classes are developed both theoretically and in practice. The topics that will help students solve challenges are reviewed and reinforced: • Topic 1. Analog signal programming. • Topic 2. Introduction to the programming language Structured text • Topic 3. Review of on-off control schemes and implementation in the PLC in Structured Text. • Topic 4. Review of PID control schemes • Topic 5. Implementation of PID control schemes using the pre-programmed PLC block Siemens The same methodology is applied as in part one, after developing the theory; the laboratory is going to implement what has been studied. The way to evaluate is similar, with the same weightings and have fifteen days for the delivery of the project. In this case, the points requested are modified since it is requested to test regulatory control schemes and their HMI. The project must comply with the following points: • Implement manual, on-off and PID control schemes in the Simatic S7-300 PLC using the structured text programming language. • Design and implement a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) with WinCC Flexible software. • Modify and monitor the parameters of the controllers from the designed interface. • Configuration of warnings and alarms in the HMI. In [11] a link is presented where the video of the obtained results is shown.

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Fig. 2. Workstation for PID control

3 Evaluation Process The evaluation process is carried out in a collegiate way, for this, the support of two professors from the Control and Automation area is requested. It is worth mentioning that this process is a little complicated due to the agendas of the teachers. This evaluation process allowed us to observe that the students have significantly increased their programming capacity. In the present work, the evaluation process of the second period exam is shown. Evaluating is similar for the first partial. The evaluation process consists of two parts: in the first, it is checked if the students understood the problem and the way to approach the solution. In the second part, it is reviewed and verifies that the HMI meets the criteria requested in the exam. In both cases, a checklist is used for the evaluation. Teacher A and C were invited to evaluate the results of the class, while Professor B is the full professor. Tables 3 and 4 show the evaluation of teachers A and B respectively. The behavior obtained from them, indicates that the perception of teachers is a very important factor in the evaluation. Professor A has less empathy with the class and does not know the process carried out by the students, what is done day-by-day, etc., therefore, it serves as a reference to validate the results. On the other hand, Professor C evaluated technical aspects related to the use of the equipment used. The results of his evaluation are shown in Table 5.

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Teacher A Indicator Problems analysis Problems statement Developing Analysis of results Conclusions Average

Points possible 20

Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4

Average

15

15

14

12

14.0

Std Des 1.41

20

18

20

18

18

18.5

1.00

20 20

18 17

18 18

16 17

17 17

17.25 17.25

0.96 0.50

20

17 17

18 17.8

16 16.2

16 16

16.75

0.96

Table 4. Full professor evaluation B Teacher B Indicator Problems analysis Problems statement Developing Analysis of results Conclusions Average

Points possible 20

Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4

Average

20

17

17

17

17.75

Std Des 1.50

20

18

18

18

18

18.00

0.00

20 20

18 17

18 18

17 17

16 16

17.25 17.00

0.96 0.82

20

18 18.2

16 17.4

15 16.8

17 16.8

16.50

1.29

Table 5. Guest teacher evaluation C Teacher C Indicator

Points possible Clarity Graphic 15 Information 10 Alarms 10 Coherence Functions 15 Logic 10 Feedback Design 10 Process 15 Standards 15 Average

Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Average Std Des 12 8 5 12 8 6 10 10 8.87

15 10 10 15 10 10 14 15 12.37

12 10 5 12 10 9 12 14 10.5

12 10 8 12 8 8 12 8 9.75

12.75 9.50 7.00 12.75 9.00 8.25 12.00 11.75

1.50 1.00 2.45 1.50 1.15 1.71 1.63 3.30

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Result Discussion

According to the results of the invited professors A and C, team 2 was the best work presented, which is not in accordance with the result of the full professor (B). This may be due to different factors such as not being involved with students throughout the semester, which would bias the result when evaluating. Another aspect to consider is the order in the evaluation of the teams by the invited professors, since not knowing the problem completely they can penalize the first team stronger, due to not being familiar with the scope of the problem and the evaluation form. As conclusion of the evaluative part, it is necessary to repeat the experiment considering the aforementioned points. For example, invite more evaluators in the evaluation process; perform an intermediate evaluation, in which the same evaluators have become a developed work. 3.2

Comments on the Experience

The technique of learning based on challenges and the introduction of hand-on work have motivated students since they have observed the importance of this subject in the career of Mechatronic Engineering and in particular for their professional performance. However, from the point of view of the teacher, it is difficult to select a didactic technique that can help motivate your students. In this case, it was not very complicated due to the background of the professors regarding their industrial activity. With respect to academic work, one of the important points to mention is teamwork. Although the vast majority of the teams have worked very well, there are always elements that do not suit teamwork, although they are the least. An important skill that students have developed is tolerance, since in spite of their differences they have solved the problems and delivered their projects. One of the tasks of the instructor is to identify this type of problem, which is not easy, and to support the student to join the team and verifying that they deliver the assigned tasks in a timely manner. Another point to consider is the laboratory equipment. It was necessary to carry out a thorough analysis and see which laboratory equipment the University had. Subsequently the development of activities. These activities were taking shape until they evolved to what is presented today. Another important point is the number of students assigned to the course. This must be a function of the capacity of the laboratory. The maximum number of students to be able to take advantage of this methodology in our case, is twelve, since the laboratory consists of four work stations and the right number to work is three students per station. However, when the enrollment is large, the group is divided into two parts and as the material is appropriate to the times, it is necessary to give an extra session of three hours to the second part of the group. This is done at a time when everyone is available and finding this point is complicated.

4 Conclusions The methodology of teaching based on challenges has been well received by the students. This can be verified by the comments made in the ECOA institutional survey. The instructors of the course, due to their experience in industrial projects, selected this

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teaching methodology. This is considered the key to the success obtained, since it allowed selecting the projects that are applied in the course. Another important point is the practical work developed in the Laboratory. Students have the opportunity to implement what they see in the class and reinforce their theoretical classes. However, there are pending issues such as the form of evaluation. The instructor is biased by the interaction they have with their students, since in addition to giving the corresponding advice, they live with the group throughout the semester and this was reflected in the evaluation process when transmitting a favorable opinion towards a team. Finally, the proposed methodology has increased the capacity of the students, not only in the ability to program these devices, but also in the handling and solution of problems. When they confront students with challenges and practical methods, they get involved and give their best, both in effort and in knowledge. Acknowledgments. The authors wish to thank the financial and technical support of Writing Lab, TecLabs, Tecnológico de Monterrey in the production of this work.

References 1. Beloiu, R.: Hands-on solutions for teaching basic introductory control systems course. In: 2015 9th International Symposium on Advanced Topics in Electrical Engineering (ATEE), Bucharest, pp. 89–93 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1109/atee.2015.7133751 2. John, K.-H., Tiegelkamp, M.: IEC 61131-3: Programming Industrial Automation Systems Concepts and Programming Languages, Requirements for Programming Systems, DecisionMaking Aids, 2nd edn. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). ISBN-10: 3642436943 3. Holstermann, N., Grube, D., Bögeholz, S.: Research in Science Educ. 40, 743 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-009-9142-0 4. Huang, N., He, J.: Research on teaching quality of basic education teachers guided by core quality concept. In: 2018 International Conference on Robots and Intelligent System (ICRIS), Changsha, pp. 449–451 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1109/icris.2018.00118 5. Silva, M., Pereira, F., Soares, F., Leao, C., Machado, J., Carvalho, V.: An overview of industrial communication networks, vol. 24, pp. 933–940 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-319-09411-3_97 6. Strobel, J.: Technology education as a practice-based discipline. In: de Vries, M. (ed.) Handbook of Technology Education. Springer, Cham (2018) 7. ECOA: Tecnológico de Monterrey (2019). https://encuestastec-admin.itesm.mx/teacher_ reports/comments. Accessed 30 May 2019 8. Amatrol (2019). https://amatrol.com/program/industrial-mechatronics-training/. Accessed 30 May 2019 9. Pere Ponsa Asensio y Ramon Vilanova: Automatización de procesos mediante la guía GEMMA. Ediciones UPC, S.L. (2005). ISBN 978-84-8301-811-8 10. First period project example. Operation station 3 (2018). https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=qetc51RhW-w. Accessed 30 May 2019 11. Second period project example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XC_O3YRxSI& feature=youtu.be. Accessed 30 May 2019

The Use of the Project-Based Learning in the Study of the Course of Mathematical Analysis Svetlana Vladimirovna Rozhkova, Irina Georgievna Ustinova(&), Olga Vitalievich Yanuschik, and Igor Vladimirovna Korytov Division for Mathematics and Computer Sciences of School of Core Engineering Education, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk, Russia {rozhkova,igu,yanuschik,korytov}@tpu.ru

Abstract. The project-based learning is a means by which learning objectives are achieved through a comprehensive study of the problem, the final stage of which is the practical result. The aim of this work is to study the possibility of using the project-based learning in the study of the course of mathematical analysis, comparing this method with traditional training and evaluating the effectiveness of this method. The motivation of this study is to improve the efficiency of the process of teaching students. Therefore, the objectives of the study are: the study of the possibility of the project-based learning in the organization of the learning process of students, the study of the possibility of using this technology in the study of mathematical analysis, finding out how effectively this method allows you to master mathematical knowledge. The method of projects was used in the study of the course of mathematical analysis, as a tool to increase the conscious independent work of students in extracurricular time. For this purpose 2 types of projects were offered students at choice: general education and applied. The results of testing of students who were trained according to traditional methods of training and results of testing of students who were trained with use of project activity are analyzed. The analysis of influence of type of the project on extent of assimilation by students of the studied material is made. As a result of the study, the hypothesis was confirmed: the use of project activities as an additional tool in the organization of independent cognitive activity of students contributes to the effective assimilation of educational material and stimulates the developing the competencies and skills to independently acquire new knowledge. Keywords: Mathematics
Engineering education
The project-based learning

1 Introduction In modern conditions, quality education is understood not only as a certain amount of knowledge obtained by a student in a higher education institution, but also as the availability of research skills, the ability to think independently, analyze information, formulate a problem, set tasks and find better ways to solve them. The quality of © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 871–879, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_85

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education largely depends on the awareness of learning, an important condition of which is the connection of theoretical knowledge with their practical application. The priority direction in the organization of the educational process in the modern university is interdisciplinary integration [1–3]. It allows you to use the knowledge by the discipline (which is studied or already has studied ones) in new contexts, outside of this discipline. The criterion of success for the future specialist is not so much the effectiveness in the study of academic disciplines, as the attitude of a person to the possibilities of their own knowledge [4], the acquisition of personal and professional experience in the learning process by non-standard facilities, the development of students’ aspirations and skills to independently obtain and use new knowledge [5]. This is not possible with the traditional approach to education and the traditional means of learning. It is necessary to involve each student in an active cognitive process, to create an adequate educational environment that would provide free access to various sources, the opportunity to work in collaboration in solving various problems. The most promising of all learning technologies is the method of projects. The method of projects is based on the idea of the orientation of educational and cognitive activity of the student on the result, which is obtained by solving a practical or theoretically significant problem [6].

2 Problem Definition Many university students consider mathematics to be a purely theoretical science that is not applied in real life [7]. Therefore, it is necessary to demonstrate to students the significance of mathematics and its methods in modern science and practice, to show the application of mathematical knowledge in the future professional activity [8]. The curriculum in Russian universities, especially technical ones, is structured in such a way that in the first two courses students study academic disciplines and the basic disciplines necessary for the successful study of subjects in the specialty. One of these basic disciplines is the subject “Mathematical analysis”. Mastering mathematical knowledge and most importantly the ability to apply this knowledge in different situations is the main purpose of the study of this math curriculum. Achieving this goal is impossible without the study of theoretical material, without mastering mathematical terms and basic concepts. Recently, the trend of studying subjects in a technical university is such that the number of classroom hours for the study of the subject at the University decreases every year, and the number of hours allocated for independent work, on the contrary, increases. More than 50% of the hours planned for the study of the subject, is given to self-study. The trend is that the first-year students, mostly just graduated from school, are not able to plan their independent work, approach problems creatively, offer different ways to solve them and choose the best one. The lack of sufficient classroom time for the detailed study and master by new theoretical material of the course of mathematics leads to the fact that students are losing interest in mathematics. Before studying the course “Mathematical analysis” a survey of students was conducted. The purpose of this survey was to characterize students’ attitude to the

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subject of mathematics. Students had to identify the reasons: why they like mathematics and why they do not like it. Thus, according to the survey, more than 70% of students recognize that the subject of “Mathematics” like, because it makes them think and expands mental horizons. When asked why a student does not like mathematics, more than 50% of students said that this subject is difficult to reach the comprehension levels. Moreover, students do not realize the practical significance of the obtained knowledge in mathematics. Thus, the main problems of teaching mathematical disciplines at the university are: lack of motivation of students in the study of this subject, weak organization of independent cognitive work and as a consequence a low level of knowledge in mathematics. Strengthening the role of independent study of students involves improving the methods of its organization, the search for new methods and means of training, the introduction of new technologies in the educational process [9], etc. One of the methods of organization of independent study of students is the method of projects [10, 11]. The organization of independent study of students by the traditional method using the method of projects allows teachers to combine different activities, motivate students to a more carefully study of theoretical material. The involvement of students in the work on projects helps to increase the level of independence of students, which contributes to a more effective assimilation of educational material. In the process of teaching mathematics to students of technical University, we not only want to achieve a high level of subject knowledge, skills and abilities of students, but also to form their ability to assess the similarity of tasks in terms of ways to solve them, which is directly aimed at increasing the level of independent study. The project method is a means by which learning objectives are achieved through a comprehensive study of the problem, the final stage of which is the practical result.

Problem

Planning

Result

Search for information

Project protection

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the stages of work on the project

The project method is focused not only on obtaining actual knowledge, but also on their application and acquisition of new ones. The project method has such advantages as [12]: increasing the motivation of students, ideal setting for creative and constructive

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activity and differentiated approach. However, there are a number of disadvantages of this method, among which we note the following: creating a project is a very timeconsuming process, it increases the emotional burden on students and the simultaneous application of this method in several courses is problematic [13]. The main focuses of the study are: the study of the possibility of the project-based learning in the organization of the learning process of students, the study of the possibility of using this technology in the study of mathematical analysis, finding out how effectively this method allows you to master mathematical knowledge. It should be noted that there is not enough research aimed at the organization of independent study of students using the method of projects that would be aimed at a careful examination of basic mathematical concepts, the formation of students’ skills to use known mathematical methods of solving problems in science and majors. The motivation of this study is to improve the efficiency of the learning process of students. Therefore, the objectives of the study are: 1. the study of the possibility of the project method in the organization of the learning process of students, namely the identification of the theoretical foundations of the organization of independent study of students of technical universities and the definition of the role and place of mathematics project in the organization of independent study of students; 2. the study of the possibility of using this technology in the study of mathematical analysis: development of a model of the organization of independent study of students of technical universities in mathematics; development of a set of tasks of various types for projects in mathematics; 3. finding out how effectively this method allows you to master mathematical knowledge, increases the interest of students to study of mathematics, motivate them to self-study.

3 Results and Discussion National research Tomsk Polytechnic University is one of the oldest and best universities in Russia. One of the main tasks of the university is to teach students to be thinking, to be well-versed in modern trends of science and production and to be in demand by modern production. To date, the Department of mathematics and Informatics of the National research Tomsk Polytechnic University has accumulated extensive experience in the development of various educational technologies in the discipline “Mathematics” for various engineering specialties [14–17]. In 2019, a study was conducted, the purpose of which was to identify the impact of work on the project on the study of students of mathematics. The method of projects was used in the study of the course of mathematical analysis, as a tool that increases the conscious independent study by students outside class. Topics for projects were selected from the section “Contour integrals and multiple integrals”. It should be noted that due to the small number of classroom hours devoted

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to lectures and practical classes on these topics, students had to study independently the geometric and physical applications of double integrals, triple integrals and contour integrals. As the experience of previous years shows, the independent study of applications in the best case was limited only to the application of formulas for calculating the mass of the body or the curve, to calculate the moments of inertia of the body, etc., with the help of integrals. The issue of obtaining these formulas was not even considered. This led to the fact that the understanding that knowledge of mathematics is a tool with which to study many of the problems associated with life situations and professional activities is not formed in students. This reduced the level of interest of students to study mathematics. As an experiment to increase the interest of students in the study of mathematics within self-study activity of students was proposed project activity. Students on specialties: “Mechanical engineering”, “Heat power and heat engineering”, “Electric power and electrical engineering” and “Power engineering” were chosen for carrying out experiment. All students were divided into 2 groups: students of the first group were trained according to the traditional scheme, and students of the second group were trained using the project method. The project activity was offered to students after studying of the topic “Indefinite and definite integrals”. Topics for projects were selected from the section “Double integrals, triple integrals and contour integrals”. The basic concepts of the theory of multiple integrals and contour integrals were studied in the classroom. The theme of one project was carried out by a group of students from 3– 4 people. There were two types of projects: general educational project and applied one, which were offered to students to choose from. When solving problems of practical projects, the student had to make a mathematical model of the problem. Independent study of the student consisted of several stages. Firstly, it was necessary to establish the correspondence of the content of the problem and the section of mathematical analysis studied in the current term. Secondly, it was necessary to make a description of conditions of the problem in terms of the corresponding section. Thirdly, students should independently look up of natural science and technical parameters to compile equations of lines, surfaces, scalar and vector functions, as well as to determine the physical and geometric restrictions resulting from the conditions of the problem. Moreover, students should independently study the methods of solving, for example, replacing the contour integral to a definite one, surface integral to double one, and perform the actual solution. Features of the content side of such tasks is to include in the conditions of the need to search for the characteristics of some real object, natural or technical, and importantly, visually familiar to students. The practical type of projects was divided into two subtypes. In the first subtype of projects were proposed tasks that may arise in the professional activity of the engineer. Let’s give examples of some tasks. • Find the shortest distance between cities Tomsk and Moscow along the arc of the earth’s surface. The surface of the Earth should be taken approximately as a sphere. Information about the radius of the Earth and the coordinates of the cities should be found independently. The equation of the line is found as the intersection of the earth’s surface with the plane passing through the three data points – the center of the Earth and the two data of the city. Perform the parameterization.

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• Find the water flow (flux of a vector field) through the surface of the inclined mesh filter, located inside the pipeline at an angle of 30º to the axis of the pipe. Describe the problem condition in terms of field theory. The type of the vector-function should be obtained independently. As the diameter of the pipe it is necessary to take one of the standard sizes used in the heat supply of civil and industrial facilities. • The field of temperatures in inside of the car is given. Find the gradient field, determine its characteristics and calculate the flow of the gradient field through the limited surface of the windshield of the car. The shape of the window is approximately taken to be a conical (the equation should be made independently based on the angle of inclination of the glass), the dimensions of the height and width to determine independently, taking as a sample the size of the real car. In the second subtype were proposed tasks of practical content that can be found in everyday life. We give examples of some problems. • The problems of finding the body volume and body weight (the use of the triple integral). Let three containers be given: in the form of a cube (with edges equal to 1), in the form of a sphere (diameter equals 1) and in the form of a cylinder (with diameter 1 and height 1). Let’s fill these capacities to the brim with bulk material with a given density c(x, y) = xy. What capacity will be the heaviest? • The problem of finding the mass of the curve and the length of the curve (the use of the contour integral). Geologists discovered a gold mine in the highlands. It can be assumed that the mine passes along a curve, the distance from which at each point to the top of a certain hill and to the road is 10 km. The mine ends 20 km away from the road. The distance from the hill to the road is 30 km. Find the mass of the gold mine, if its density is xy. • Economic application (the application of the double integral). What is the amount of grain harvest can be collected from the area, in the absence of losses, if the images from space known agro-production q(x, y) = x + y of this crop? It is known that the region has the form: – of rectangle with sides of 5 and 3 km; – in the form of an oval with the distance between the focuses equal to 2 and the sum of the distances from the point to the focuses equal to 4; – in the form of a figure, the border of which passes along the curve, the distance from the points of the curve to the nearby road, 5 km long, and to a certain hill (not lying on the road) is the same. It is known that the distance from the hill to the end of the field is 0.5 km. To general educational project we have identified those in which it was necessary to deduce the known formulas for finding body mass, moment of inertia, etc., and to show that the derivation of these formulas leads to mathematical models of different kinds of integrals. Here are some examples of topics. • Finding the surface area, moments of inertia of a plane material figure by means of a double integral with proofs. Provide a detailed solution to three typical tasks. • Finding the mass of the body, static moments of the body relative to the coordinate planes, coordinates of the center of gravity of the body using a triple integral with proofs. Provide a detailed solution to three typical tasks.

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• Finding the mass of a plane curve, static moments relative to coordinate planes, and coordinates of the center of mass using a contour integral with proofs. Provide a detailed solution to three typical tasks. • Surface integrals. Finding the mass distributed over the surface, the static moments relative to the planes, the coordinates of the center of mass, the moments of inertia relative to the coordinate planes of a homogeneous surface, the potential at the point M0 of a simple layer distributed with a density lðx; y; zÞ on the surface S. Provide a detailed solution to three typical tasks. After the defense of the projects, students performed the test. The table shows the results of testing on the topics of “Indefinite and definite integrals”, and the results of the control study of the topic “Multiple integrals and contour integrals” in groups studying the material on the traditional scheme (1 group), and using the project method (2 group). Table 1. The relative level of knowledge of students at the beginning and the end of the experiment № Specialties

1

Mechanical engineering 2 Heat power and heat engineering. Power engineering 3 Electric power and electrical engineering Number of people who participated in the testing

The first test (%)

Retest (%)

The topic is “Indefinite and definite integrals”

The theme is “Multiples and contour integrals”

The first group number of students

The second group number of students

The first group number of students

The second group number of students

37% 36

33%

32

28.57% 35

29.34% 28

40% 52

42.5% 40

12.79% 52

26.78% 40

33% 34

34%

44%

53%

122

88

16

122

35

16

84

The findings seem mixed. Students of the direction of electric power and electrical engineering have improved their results compared to the input testing, and this improvement applies not only to the group that worked on projects, but also to the group that did not use this method in training. However, for the group working on the project, this increase in the number of points is more significant (19% compared to 11%). The reduction of re-testing points occurred in all remaining specialties 1 and 2. Note that this decrease was smaller in the group that used the project method. Reducing the number of points in the re-testing is associated with the complexity of the teaching materials that students studied and with the complexity of the test questions. If for the

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second and third directions the difference in test scores for repeated testing is obvious, and it is in favor of the project method, then for the direction 1 it is necessary to investigate, namely to test the hypothesis of equality of the averages of scores of groups 1 and 2 against the alternative hypothesis, which is that the averages of scores are not equal to each other. We have found that in accordance with Student’s t-test, at the level of significance a ¼ 0:1 there is no reason to reject the hypothesis of equality of average scores. Average scores in the re-testing of students of the direction of mechanical engineering differ insignificantly. However, at the entrance testing of students of the direction of mechanical engineering, the average score of the group that did not work with projects was higher than the average score of the group that later worked on projects, and at the re-testing the averages of scores were almost equal, that is, students who worked on projects significantly improved their mathematical skills. And this shows the benefits of the project method. The students were generally positive opinion about the use of the method of projects in the course “Mathematics”. The majority of students, namely, 84% of respondents were positive about the use of this educational method, 7% of students believed that the method of projects in this discipline is not necessary and 9% found it difficult to answer. Also by means of this research assessment by students of degree of usefulness of use of separate opportunities of a method of projects for training was received. The most useful, according to students, were: the ability to work in a team (86%), the development of skills and abilities of independent study (84%), broadening of horizons (83%). Less useful students called: the formation of a holistic image of the professional situation (73%) and the ability to try different methods of solving problems (68%).

4 Summary Using the method of projects in teaching mathematics allows students to form independence, research skills, the ability to critical thinking, the ability to self-education and self-esteem and to develop cognitive interest. Working on the project, students actively had been participated in the usual training classes. They began to perceive mathematics not as an abstract science, but as a kind of universal apparatus that allows solving practice-oriented problems. The analysis of students’ mastering of the topic “Multiple integrals and contour integrals” showed that the students who implemented this project, when performing test, showed better results. This indicates that the work on the project helped students to master the theoretical and practical material more effectively. Despite all of the above, it is important to emphasize that experts from many countries [18, 19] with extensive experience in project-based learning believe that this pedagogical technology should be used as a complement to other types of direct or indirect learning, as a means of accelerating growth in both personal and academic terms [20, 21].

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References 1. Minnis, M., John-Steiner, V.P.: Interdisciplinary integration in professional education. Tools and analysis from cultural historical activity theory. Issues Integr. Stud. 24, 32–88 (2006) 2. Bailis, S.: Contending with complexity: a response to William H. Newell’s “a theory of interdisciplinary studies”. Issues Integr. Stud. 19, 27–42 (2001) 3. Frodeman, R., Mitcham, C., Sacks, A.B.: Questioning interdisciplinarity. Sci. Technol. Soc. Newsl. 126 & 127, 1–5 (2001) 4. Donaghy, R.C., Robinson, M., Wallace, A.H., Walker, K., Brockett, R.G.: A citation analysis of literature on self-directed learning. Paper presented at the 16th international selfdirected learning symposium, Boynton Beach, Florida (2002) 5. Korytov, I.V., Korytova, G.S.: Differentiation and individual approach in teaching higher mathematics to students of technical university. TSPU Bull. 4(169), 33–41 (2016) 6. Chard, S.C.: The project approach (2011). http://www.projectapproach.org/project_approach. php. Accessed 30 Nov 2012 7. Chen, Y., Hoshower, L.B.: Student evaluation of teaching effectiveness: an assessment of student perception and motivation. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 28(1), 71–88 (2003) 8. Nagovitsina, O.A., Sergievskii, V.V.: Approach to problems of interdisciplinary education. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 128, 489–492 (2014) 9. Marlow, J.: Learning alone. Am. Sch. Board J. 87(12), 56–62 (2000) 10. Buck Institute for Education: Project-based learning for the 21st century (2012). http://www. bie.org/about/what_is_pbl. Accessed 30 Nov 30 2012 11. Savage, R.N., Chen, K.C.: Vanasupa integrating project based learning through bout the undergraduate engineering curriculum. IEEE Eng. Manag. Rev. 37(1), 25–37 (2009) 12. Pfaeffli, B.K.: Teach in universities: a university teaching for the development of knowledge and skills. Bern, Stuttgart, Vienna (2005) 13. Maida, C.A.: Project-based learning: a critical pedagogy for the twenty-first century. Policy Futures Educ. 9(6), 759–768 (2011) 14. Pokholkov, Yu.P., Rozhkova, S.V., Tolkacheva, K.K.: Practice-oriented educational technologies for training engineers. In: International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning, ICL 2013, pp. 619–620 (2013) 15. Rozhkova, S.V., Rozhkova, V.I., Chervach, M.Y.: Introducing smart technologies for teaching and learning of fundamental disciplines. Smart Innov. Syst. Technol. 59, 507–514 (2016) 16. Pakhomova, E.G., Yanuschik, O.V., Dorofeeva, M.G.: Analysis of the e-learning technologies used for teaching mathematics at Tomsk Polytechnic University. In: International Conference on Research Paradigms Transformation in Social Sciences (RPTSS), p. 28 (2016) 17. Tarbokova T., Ustinova I., Rozhkova, O.: Application of the technology flipped classroom in the course study linear algebra and analytical geometry. In: Technology, Education and Development, INTED2018, pp. 4795–4802 (2018) 18. Sakamoto, T.: The Roles of Educational Technology in Curriculum Development. Centre of Educational Research and Innovation, Paris (1974) 19. Thomas, J.W.: A review of research on project-based learning (2000). http://173.226.50.98/ sites/default/files/news/pbl_research2.pdf. Accessed 30 Nov 30 (2012) 20. Hawelka, B., Hammerl, M., Gruber, H.: Development of skills in higher education: theoretical concepts and their implementation in practice. Heidelberg (2007) 21. Freer, A.: Editorial: core skills and modular education. J. Undergraduate Res. 3(2) (2010). http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/reinventionjournal/issues/volume3issue2/editorial. Accessed 06 July 2016

A Systematic Approach to Implementing Complex Problem Solving in Engineering Curriculum Chia Pao Liew1,2,4(&), Siti Hawa Hamzah2, Marlia Puteh3, Shahrin Mohammad2,4, and Wan Hamidon Wan Badaruzzaman2,5 1

Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [email protected] 2 Engineering Accreditation Department, Board of Engineers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [email protected] 3 Centre for Engineering Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia [email protected] 4 Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia [email protected] 5 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia [email protected]

Abstract. Over the years, there are various reports that confirmed the importance of complex problem solving in the workplace. Complex problem solving is the top identified skill to thrive in the 4th Industrial Revolution and emphasised in the Washington Accord’s 12 Graduate Attributes. However, in most cases, engineering educators often fail to design complex engineering problems to equip the students with the mastery of this skill in preparing them for the workforce. This paper attempts to present a systematic approach for engineering educators in designing assessments with complex engineering problems. Methods of qualitative analysis was employed namely field notes from accreditation site visits to the Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs); document analysis on the guidelines by accreditation bodies; and extensive literature review on various learning theories to support the implementation of complex problems. The results showed that engineering educators have poor understanding of the attributes of complex problems and often failed to construct complex problems for their courses. The proposed approach has outlined two strategies in addressing the problems. Firstly, it detailed out the attributes of complex engineering problem as guidance for the HLIs in implementing the engineering curriculum. Secondly, it identified the most appropriate learning theory, appropriate teaching and delivery methods, as well as suitable courses to address complex engineering problem solving. The approach is heuristic in nature with an iterative process in observing the attainment of this important skill. Keywords: Complex engineering problem solving Washington accord


Ill-defined problem


© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 880–891, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_86

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1 Introduction Over the years, various reports have confirmed the importance of complex problem solving in the industry. For instance, the World Economic Forum (WEF) [1], has identified 10 critical skills one needs in order to thrive in the 4th Industrial Revolution Complex problem solving is the top skill listed by the WEF. Not only that, complex problem solving was also emphasised in the Washington Accord’s 12 Graduate Attributes [2] and the Engineering Accreditation Council, Malaysia’s (EAC) accreditation manual. The EAC requires that engineering programmes which are seeking for accreditation must prepare graduates for future technological and societal changes, and able to acquire new knowledge and apply to new problems [3]. Unfortunately, the common problems encountered in engineering programmes are often well-defined problems [4], not authentic industry-based problems. It is important to note that the roles of engineers are differentiated from the technologists or technicians by their ability to deal with complex problems [2]. Davidson and Sternberg [5] states that “well-defined problems are those problems whose goals, path to solution, and obstacles to solution are clear based on the information given” and “complex problems are characterised by their lack of a clear path to solution. Such problems often lack a clear problem statement as well, making the task of problem definition and problem representation quite challenging.” In the process of solving well-defined problems in engineering, students learn to formulate the known and unknown quantities into equations, solve these equations to find the values of the unknown and validate the values [4]. This linear process suggests that solving problems is procedural which requires memorisation and repetition, a platform that emphasises the importance of getting answers rather than analysing the decision-making process. In contrast, complex problems can lead to multiple revisions of the problem representation in order to find a single most appropriate solution. According to Fatin et al. [6], complex engineering problems are often encountered in design-based courses or projects with the seven attributes as defined by the Washington Accord in Table 1. Regrettably, in most cases, these projects often lack real issues of industry environment; and engineering educators often fail to design complex engineering problems in assessing students’ mastery of the skill. The authors further conducted a focus group interview on engineering educators to evaluate their understanding on the attributes of complex engineering problems, ironically, only a handful of them understand the attributes. The seven attributes of complex engineering problems defined by the Washington Accord [2] are identical to the nature of the problems solved in the industry. These attributes can be used to compare and contrast the problems unraveled in the industry with those problems that are exposed in the classrooms. From that standpoint, the present study is aimed at explaining the nature of the problems which engineering students must be trained in order to adapt to the industrial sector’s problems and solutions. In summary, the objective of the present study is to develop a systematic approach to implementing complex problem solving in engineering curriculum. In addition, the study supports the initiatives promoted by the Ministry of Education via its publication, Framing Malaysian Higher Education 4.0 [7] in producing future-proof graduates and as well as improving students’ ability to deal with complex engineering problems.

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2 Literature Review There are intercorrelations between the Washington Accord’s complex engineering problem solving, knowledge profile and graduate attributes. This section will begin by explaining these relationships to facilitate the implementation of complex engineering problem in the engineering curriculum. The graduate attributes (henceforth referred as WA) is an agreement between the accreditation bodies responsible for accreditation or recognition of professional engineering undergraduate degree programmes in its signatory countries. The list of graduate attributes (12 of them – listed as WA1–WA12 in Fig. 1) was agreed by all signatory countries for benchmarking of standards for engineering education. The attributes are also the exemplars of outcomes expected of graduates who graduated from an accredited programme in any signatory countries [8]. It was noted that the WA are supported by the knowledge profile statements (WK1 to WK8), the levels of problem solving (WP) and 1complex engineering activities (EA) as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Graduate attributes, knowledge profile, complex engineering problem solving and complex engineering activities

The knowledge profile supports the first eight (8) of the twelve WA (WA1 to WA8). It is meant to provide additional guidance on curriculum design and review to the HLIs [2]: WK1 – Natural sciences; WK2 – Mathematics; WK3 – Engineering fundamentals; WK4 – Engineering specialist knowledge; WK5 – Engineering design; WK6 – Engineering practice (technology); WK7 – Role of engineering in society; and WK8 – Research literature.

1

Complex engineering activities are not discussed in this paper.

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The first four components of the knowledge profile (natural sciences, mathematics, engineering fundamentals and engineering specialist knowledge) are related to content knowledge. However, engineering specialist knowledge is not usable without the know-how (i.e., application of knowledge). Hence the next three components (engineering design, engineering practice (technology) and comprehension of engineering in society are related to the application of knowledge. The last component, research literature relates to the ability to source related knowledge from the literature. Out of the eight components of the knowledge profile, only six are included for complex engineering problem solving as shown in Table 1, i.e., “Cannot be resolved without indepth engineering knowledge at the level of one or more of WK3, WK4, WK5, WK6 or WK8” which allows a fundamentals-based, first principles analytical approach”. WK1, WK2 and WK7 are excluded because they are not considered as in-depth engineering knowledge. To illustrate, WK1, natural sciences requires students to highlight the principles and laws in demonstrating the understanding of a phenomenon, however, this undertaking is often too detailed to be applied in engineering activity. Table 1 illustrates the attributes of complex engineering problems for a Washington Accord’s compliance undergraduate engineering programme. In order to be classified as a complex problem, the programme must demonstrate the first attribute, the depth of knowledge and several other attributes [2]. Students’ ability to deal with complex engineering problems is emphasised in seven (out of the twelve) associated WA’s Graduate Attributes, namely, Engineering Knowledge, Problem Analysis, Design or Development of Solutions, Investigation, Modern Tools Usage, Engineer and Society, and Environment and Sustainability. Table 1. Range of problem solving No. 1

Attributes Depth of knowledge required

2

Range of conflicting requirements

3

Depth of analysis required

4 5

Familiarity of issues Extent of applicable codes

6

Extent of stakeholder involvement and level of conflicting requirements Interdependence

7

Complex engineering problems Cannot be resolved without in-depth engineering knowledge at the level of one or more of WK3, WK4, WK5, WK6 or WK8 which allows a fundamentals-based, first principles analytical approach Involve wide-ranging or conflicting technical, engineering and other issues Have no obvious solution and require abstract thinking, originality in analysis to formulate suitable models Involve infrequently encountered issues Are outside problems encompassed by standards and codes of practice for professional engineering Involve diverse groups of stakeholders with widely varying needs Are high level problems including many component parts or sub-problems

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With the above understanding, according to Jonassen [9], different learning theories are appropriate for different levels of knowledge acquisition; behaviorism and cognitivism are better approaches at the beginner’s level while constructivism is appropriate as the learner moves to more advanced levels. Schon [10] highlighted that as students gained more experience with a given content, they progress from a low-to-high knowledge curve from “know-what” to “know-how” and finally to “reflection-inaction”. In another words, behaviorism approach can effectively facilitate mastery of the content of engineering (know-what); cognitivism approach is useful in teaching problem-solving techniques where defined facts and rules are applied in unfamiliar situations (know-how); and constructivist approach is best suited to dealing with illdefined or complex problems (reflection-in-action) [11]. 2.1

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework for this study shown in Fig. 2 is developed based on the alignment of learning theories to the level of problem solving. Based on the above discussed literatures, cognitivist learning theory is appropriate for developing problemsolving skills that require higher-order thinking which are confined within the first mandatory attribute of complex engineering problems, i.e., “Cannot be resolved without in-depth engineering knowledge at the level of one or more of WK3, WK4, WK5, WK6 or WK8”; while constructivist learning theory is appropriate for first mandatory and the rest of the attributes of complex engineering problems as listed and described in Table 1.

Fig. 2. Conceptual framework

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To summarise, the objective of the present study is to develop a systematic approach for implementing complex engineering problem solving in engineering curriculum by addressing the following research questions: RQ1: RQ2:

What are the issues faced by engineering educators in implementing complex problem solving in the engineering curriculum? How to implement complex problem solving in the engineering curriculum?

3 Methodology This study applied simple qualitative analysis by focusing on the field notes taken from accreditation site visits to 14 engineering programmes offered by different HLIs in Malaysia in 2017 and 2018 by the first author. The field notes were taken to identify the issues in implementing complex problem solving in the HLIs’ engineering curriculum. Apart from the field notes, analysis of the documents and guidelines from accreditation bodies was also performed. The document analysis along with the literature review were to support the development of a systematic approach to implementing complex problem solving in engineering curriculum.

4 Results and Discussion 4.1

Issues Faced by Engineering Educators

Table 2 shows some of the reflections of the field notes taken by the first author during the accreditation site visits in 2017 and 2018 on various engineering programmes offered by different HLIs. The field notes highlighted the discussion between the panel reviewers and engineering educators during the accreditation site visits. Table 2. Field notes from accreditation site visits Institution Reflection

Theme

A

Lack of understanding on the attributes of complex engineering problems

B

It appeared to me that the Integrated Design Project is not offered in the programme to expose the students to solve complex engineering problems. Currently, the programme claimed that the students were exposed to solve complex engineering problems through mini projects and assignments, unfortunately, these assessments were found to be lacking of complexity It is commendable that the Design Project is multidisciplinary-based with the involvement of at least one team member from the School of Computer Science to solve open-ended problems in electronic and communication engineering. At the end of the project, each group of students are required to produce a prototype and a technical report. However, these projects do not consider constraints such as societal, environment and sustainability in the design work which are the determining factors for complexity

Lack of understanding on the attributes of complex engineering problems

(continued)

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Institution Reflection

Theme

C

Lack of understanding on the attributes of complex engineering problems

D

E

F

It was observed that the open-ended laboratory experiments are prescriptive in nature which involve procedural measurement and equipment set up. It is conclusive that complex engineering problems have not been implemented in the laboratory activities The Integrated Design Project is lacking in terms of complexity and mechatronic engineering analysis. The depth of analysis in the modelling of mechatronic system design as well as a more structured element of computer programming are not present in the project A majority of the lecturers did not portray satisfactory understanding of the implementation of complex engineering problem solving. In addition, they did not satisfactorily embrace the use of taxonomy in their assessment preparation. They seemed to be confused with the terms, complexity and taxonomy It appeared to me, the terms, complexity, taxonomy and depth were used interchangeably in the discussion on the design of continuous assessments. What do we need to ensure in the design of different types of continuous assessments, complexity, taxonomy or depth?

Lack of understanding on the attributes of complex engineering problems

Confusion with complexity and taxonomy among engineering educators

Confusion with complexity and taxonomy among engineering educators

Reflections from Institution A, B, C and D suggest that engineering educators displayed poor understanding of the attributes of complex engineering problems hence failed to construct complex engineering problems for their courses. Secondly, there is a confusion with the terms, complexity and taxonomy among the engineering educators as shown in excerpts from Institution E and F. The findings indicate that seven (7) attributes of complex engineering problem solving shown in Table 1 need to be defined to allow for effective implementation of complex problem solving in the engineering curriculum. 4.2

Defining the Attributes of Complex Engineering Problems

The document analysis from two accreditation bodies, Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) and Engineering New Zealand (Engineering NZ) resulted in a more detailed description for each attribute of complex engineering problems. In order to be classified as a complex problem, it must have the first attribute, depth of knowledge and some or all of the other attributes [2]. In–depth knowledge means knowledge gained from courses or learning activities beyond the introductory instructional level while the first principles are the fundamental concepts or assumptions on which a theory, system, or method is based [12]. In engineering, the first principle starts directly at the level of established laws of chemistry, physics and mathematics. For example, in applying detailed theoretical knowledge, one must be able to demonstrate understanding of the first principles to

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establish a workable mathematical or theoretical model. This also relates as to why natural sciences and mathematics are not used to address complex engineering problem solving. The second attribute - range of conflicting requirements refers to the constraints placed to resolve the problems and conflicting demands in developing a design [13]. For example, graduates need to be able to identify the strength or weakness of the problem solution; the solution or design required by stakeholders may require innovative and creative solution comparative to the ideal engineering solution; and the critical factors such as economics of scale, safety, environment issues, aesthetics, etc. The third attribute, depth of analysis refers to the ability in producing multiple solutions to meet functional specifications and to compare the solutions against the problem objective in selecting the best concept [13]. The importance of teamwork must be stressed because creative solutions to technical problems are not solved by individuals but by a team of people from different technical backgrounds who bring different perspectives to the problem. According to Engineering NZ [13], the fourth attribute requires the extent to which the problem is routinely encountered and resolved using well-understood practices. The problem could be a new problem that is not previously encountered or a familiar problem with unique issues that made resolution difficulty level increases. The fifth attribute, extent of applicable codes refers to how the existing standards or codes dictate the solution [13]. Students may apply engineering skills to address some parts or all of the problem that were not clearly prescribed by standards, codes or practices. The sixth attribute, extent of stakeholder involvement and level of conflicting requirements refers to how the stakeholders’ interests and requirements impact the problem [13], the interaction with affected stakeholders to resolve the conflicts, and so on. Finally, the seventh attribute - interdependence refers to problems which include many sub-problems or sub-systems. The problem should be able to be mathematically broken down to smaller components [12]. The above descriptions on the attributes should provide some guidance to the engineering educators in implementing complex problem solving in the engineering curriculum. 4.3

Ideal Courses for Implementing Complex Engineering Problems

The International Engineering Alliance (IEA) [14] states that “engineering problem is a problem that exists in any domain that can be solved by the application of engineering knowledge and skills, and professional skills; and engineering activities include but are not limited to: design; planning; investigation and problem resolution; improvement of materials, components, systems or processes; engineering operations and maintenance; project management; research, development and commercialisation”. The first statement highlights that an engineering problem cannot be solved solely by the application of engineering knowledge and skills but also with the use of professional skills. These professional skills include teamwork, communication, lifelong learning and managerial skills support the social constructivism theory of learning where learning takes place due to the students’ interaction in a group. The second statement highlights the types of

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engineering activities that take place in the industry which can be used as the reference for engineering educators to construct complex engineering problems for their courses [15]. Industry-based integrated design project employed Problem-based Learning (PBL) teaching method to provide students with the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge toward developing a robust understanding of what it means to be an engineer [16]. It supports students to make transition from classroom-based activities to professional communities of practices [17]. Working with a supervisor from the industry in a type of collaboration, students are challenged with a real-world problem. Industry-based integrated design project is an example of constructivism theory of learning. The final year project or commonly known as research project is another avenue to implement complex engineering problems. It is one of the best means of introducing an investigative research-oriented approach to engineering studies [3] and sourcing of knowledge externally from the real-world. It involves review of open research literature which challenges students to interpret new information, perform critical analysis, form personal opinions and judgements, and learn independently. Open research literature is one of the assessments that employs constructivist technique [9]. Industry training or work-based learning provides opportunities for students to engage in experiential education, integrating theory with work experience [18]. It provides students with knowledge base and skills to help them translate isolated and abstract concepts into practical applications of that knowledge [19]. The training is an exciting platform for students to practice their complex engineering activities, thereafter, their communication skills, both written and oral can be assessed. Laboratory experiences are one of the important elements in engineering education, bridging the gaps between engineering theories and real practices through cultivation of hands-on skills. In open-ended approach, the problem may have multiple solutions and there is no obvious solution [20]. Being a subset of problem-based learning, openended laboratory focuses on student’s ability to design experiments, identify the variables or results or information to be collected and identify the appropriate instruments for the assigned problem. This approach suits the need to produce engineering graduates that are self-directed, reflective, demonstrate ability to integrate knowledge, think critically, practice life-long learning and work collaborative with others [21]. The abovementioned courses strongly addressed the knowledge profile such as WK5, WK6 and WK8 required under the first attribute, Depth of Knowledge of complex problem solving. Engineering fundamental (WK3) and engineering specialist knowledge (WK4) courses could also be used to implement complex problem solving by addressing real-world issues. 4.4

A Systematic Approach to Implementing Complex Problem Solving in Engineering Curriculum

This study intended to explain the attributes of complex engineering problem solving and to prepare engineering students to solve industry-based or complex problems. The understanding of these attributes would assist engineering programmes to design learning experiences to better prepare their graduates to meet the challenges of WA and the 4th Industrial Revolution.

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Figure 3 shows the proposed systematic approach to implement complex problem solving in engineering curriculum as a result of the methodology undertaken by the authors. The approach provides a starting point with draft-type guidelines on how to design assessments with industry-based or complex problems.

Fig. 3. A systematic approach to implementing complex engineering problem solving

The approach begins by emphasising on the understanding of the attributes of the complex engineering problems to enable engineering educators to contrast the existing classroom problems with requirements of industry-based or complex problems. Constructivist learning theory emphasised on the ability to elaborate on and interpret information; and the transfer of knowledge is facilitated by authentic tasks related to real-world problems [11]. It was generally agreed [9] that constructivist approaches are well-suited to advanced courses where students have the advanced knowledge needed to deal with complex problems having acquired the introductory knowledge by objectivistic approaches (behaviorist and cognitivist). Hence the chosen courses to address complex engineering problems are typically from the advanced level such as integrated design project, research project, industry training, open-ended laboratory experiments, etc. Teaching methods employed by constructivists evolved around situating tasks in real-world contexts, work-based learning (coaching students), collaborative learning to develop and share different views, social negotiation (debate, brainstorming, discussion), reflective awareness, among others. Next, it is important to validate if the assessments encompass the attributes of a complex problem by simple mapping and brief explanation on how these attributes are addressed. Finally, since there are numerous variables affecting individual students’ ability to solve complex problems and also impossible to take all them into the account, the approach is heuristic in nature with an iterative process to be included. In this case, the attainment of outcomes ought to be observed for continuous improvement.

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5 Conclusion The qualitative analysis on the field notes showed that engineering educators displayed poor understanding of the attributes of complex engineering problems and confused with the terms, complexity and taxonomy; and failed to construct complex engineering problems for their courses. Hence in order to address the first research question, the current study explained the different attributes of complex problems that resemble industry or real-world problems. Understanding these attributes would help the engineering educators to design assessments with the complexity required to prepare graduates to meet the expectations of potential employers and the Washington Accord, and to embrace the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution. It was found that the constructivist approaches are well-suited to deal with complex problems that often delivered through advanced courses such as integrated design project, research project, industry training and open-ended laboratory experiments that evolved around situating tasks in real-world contexts, work-based learning, collaborative learning and social negotiation. On the other hand, behavioral and cognitive approaches are more suited for introductory knowledge acquisition where the former can facilitate mastery of contents and the latter is useful in teaching problem-solving techniques where defined facts and rules are applied in unfamiliar situations. The proposed approach addresses the second research question by providing a starting point with draft-type guidelines on how to design assessments with industry or ill-defined or complex problems. It is heuristic in nature hence an iterative process must be built where students’ outcomes ought to be observed for improvement.

References 1. World Economic Forum: The 10 Skills You Need to Thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016). https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrivein-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/. Accessed 3 Mar 2018 2. IEA: Graduate Attributes and Professional Competencies ver. 3: 21 June 2013 (2013).http:// www.ieagreements.org/assets/Uploads/Documents/Policy/Graduate-Attributes-andProfessionalCompetencies.pdf. Accessed 29 May 2018 3. EAC: Engineering Programme Accreditation Manual 2017. Engineering Accreditation Council, Kuala Lumpur (2017) 4. Jonassen, D., Strobel, J., Lee, C.B.: Everyday problem solving in engineering: lessons for engineering educators. J. Eng. Educ. 95, 139–151 (2006) 5. Davidson, J., Sternberg, R.: The Psychology of Problem Solving. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2003) 6. Phang, F.A., Anuar, A.N., Aziz, A.A., Mohd Yusof, K., Syed Hassan, S.A.H., Ahmad, Y.: Perception of complex engineering problem solving among engineering educators. In: Auer M., Kim KS. (eds.) Engineering Education for a Smart Society, GEDC 2016, WEEF 2016. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 627, pp. 215–224 (2018) 7. Hamisah Tapsir, S., Puteh, M.: Framing Malaysian Higher Education 4.0: Future-Proof Talents. Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, Putrajaya (2018)

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8. Liew, C.P., Puteh, M., Mohammad, S.: Best practices in Washington accord signatories: with reference to the accreditation criteria, systems and procedures. In: Proceedings of 2014 International Conference on Teaching and Learning in Computing and Engineering, Kuching, Malaysia, pp. 278–282 (2014) 9. Jonassen, D.H.: Evaluating constructivistic learning. Educ. Technol. 31(9), 28–33 (1991) 10. Schon, D.A.: Educating The Reflective Practitioner. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (1987) 11. Ertmer, P.A., Newby, T.J.: Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Spec. Issue Res. Update Key Train. Mentoring Top. 26(2), 43–71 (2013) 12. CEAB: A Guide to Outcomes-Based Criteria (Draft). Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board, Ottawa (2015) 13. Engineering NZ: Requirements for Accreditation of Engineering Education Programmes (Rev. 3.1). Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ) (2017). https://www. engineeringnz.org/…/123/Programme_Accreditation_Requirements.pdf. Accessed 7 June 2018 14. IEA: Glossary of Terms ver. 2: 15 September 2011 (2011). http://www.ieagreements.org/ assets/Uploads/IEA-Extended-Glossary.pdf. Accessed 8 June 2018 15. Liew, C.P.: A Sustainable Framework for Assessing the Engineering Accreditation Council’s Programme Outcomes (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia (2019) 16. Johri, A., Olds, B.: Situated engineering learning: bridging engineering education research and the learning sciences. J. Eng. Educ. 100(1), 151–185 (2011) 17. Lave, J.: Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life. Cambridge University Press, New York (1988) 18. Blair, B.F., Millea, M., Hammer, J.: The impact of cooperative education on academic performance and compensation of engineering majors. J. Eng. Educ. 93(4), 333–338 (2004) 19. Noyes, C.R., Gordon, J., Ludlum, J.: The academic effects of cooperative education experiences: does co-op make a difference in engineering coursework? In: Proceedings of 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, pp. 22.1428.1421–1422.1428.1414. American Society for Engineering Education, Vancouver (2011) 20. Cullin, M., Hailu, G., Kupilik, M., Petersen, T.: The effect of an open-ended design experience on student achievement in an engineering laboratory course. Int. J. Eng. Pedagogy 7(4), 102–116 (2017) 21. McKinnon, M.M.: Core elements of student motivation in PBL. New Dir. Teach. Learn. 78, 49–58 (1999)

Improvement of Pre-service Teachers’ Professional Competencies Using DAPOA Project-Based Learning Pichit Uantrai(&) and Somsak Akatimagool(&) King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. The research objective aims to improve the pre-service teachers’ professional competencies using the project-based DAPOA learning model for engineering education. The project-based learning model is important to encourage learners to have knowledge skills and attitude in professional occupation consistent to the 21st century learning skills. The important learning skills consist of life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, information media and technology skills. Moreover, in educating technology and engineering, active learning is necessary to promote students to have essential skills in industry and education sectors. The developed project-based DAPOA learning model is an active learning that can encourage students to have knowledge and skills by searching, working in team, problem solving, communicating and etc. In this paper, the improvement of the teachers’ professional competencies using the project-based learning for developing pre-service teachers was proposed and the efficiency of learning and teaching management and internship was evaluated. Keywords: Pre-service teachers DAPOA learning model


Professional competencies
Project-based

1 Introduction In the 21st century, which is considered the era of technology has a leapfrogging change. In order to be able to compete in globalization, every country in the world is moving towards a new trend of change called knowledge society and knowledge-based economy that must give important to the use of knowledge and innovation as a factor in development and production of industry. Therefore, the development of people to be ready in technology is an important to develop the country to be stable and sustainable. In order to reach that goal, education in an era of rapid change has to be readjust and, in many years ago, many countries have taken steps to improve the education system that emphasizes the necessary competencies and focus on implementing technology. The quality of the population with technology knowledge is an important part of the developing countries [1]. Considering the Southeast Asia zone, the vision of the Thai government focuses on creating economic value and driven by innovation and moving from producing commodities to innovative products emphasizing on promoting technology, creativity and innovation. The idea of a new policy called “Thailand 4.0” is to © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 892–902, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_87

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push Thailand into the modern economy era. Therefore, developing peoples to be ready to technology change is important. The production of professional teachers to teach engineering and technology is a function of the national education system [2]. Presently, the Teacher’s Council of Thailand defines an education policy on the competency-based, in addition to having good knowledge, skills, and attitudes which teachers in new generation must have 4 important competencies including; (1) 5Cs consists of the Critical thinking and problem solving, Creativity and innovation, Collaboration, Teamwork and leadership, Communication and information, Career and learning self-reliance. (2) TPCK consists of the Technological, Pedagogical, Content, Knowledge. (3) GE means the General Education. (4) SIL means the School-Integrated Learning. Therefore, the creation of a teachers’ competences follows the need to start when they become the pre-service teachers so that it is skills can be used automatically. Education system for pre-service teachers is the course which is offered by the students before they join teaching profession and leads to a degree and certification, to make a person eligible to join teaching profession. Pre-service teachers’ professional competencies in field of engineering and technology must have outstanding knowledge skills for teaching and learning management consistent to the 21st century skills [3, 4] consisting of life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, information media and technology skills. In educating technology and engineering, active learning is necessary to promote students to have essential skills in industry and education sectors. Project-based learning is a learning model which students gain knowledge and skills by working and respond to engaging and complex questions, problems, or challenge. In this paper, we will propose how to improve the teachers’ professional competencies using the project-based learning and to present the best learning model for developing pre-service teachers as quality. The purposes of the research are to improve the pre-service teachers’ professional competencies using the project-based DAPOA learning model, to evaluate efficiency of learning and teaching and student’s satisfaction using developed learning model, and to promote the pre-service teachers to have reasonability, attitude and self-confidence.

2 Learning Management for Pre-service Teachers The learning management for producing pre-service teachers is processes for gaining knowledge about teaching using internship experiences, learning process is studying the content of the courses required for major in classroom of interest and preparation before internship in vocational or technical college. 2.1

The Pre-service Teachers’ Professional Competencies

Competencies mean the ability to do something well that requires the ability to perform that job. The process of creating a teacher’ professional competency is the essence of

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professional teaching. Because students are trained to have the knowledge and skills to teach students in the future. Professional’ competencies if looking at Bloom’s taxonomy, will be consistent. Bloom’s taxonomy [5] contains six categories of cognitive skills ranging from lower-order skills that require less cognitive processing to higher-order skills that require deeper learning and a greater degree of cognitive processing. The differentiation into categories of higher-order and lower-order skills, as shown in Fig. 1. In actual conditions, the production standards of each teacher in engineering and technology will be different due to the condition of the location, Society and economy. As a result, the disparity of media and tools to use in learning. Provincial areas usually suffer more the capital. But technology have advancement, Active Learning Management will be reducing the gap because it can be used through online media and using activities to create competencies for pre-service teacher students.

Creating Level 6

Assemble, Construct, Create, Design, Develop, Formulate, Write

Level 5

Argue, Defend, Judge, Select, Support, Value, Evaluate

Level 4

Appraise, Compare, Contrast, Criticise, Differentiate, Experiment, Question, Test

Level 3

Choose, Demonstrate, Illustrate, Interpret, operate, Solve, Use

Level 2

Classify, Describe, Discuss, Explain, Identity, Locate, Report

Level 1

Define, Duplicate, List, Memorise, Recall, Repeat

Evaluating

Analysing Applying Understanding

Remembering

Fig. 1. Bloom’s Taxonomy

2.2

The DAPOA Learning Development Model

Presently, most learning and teaching still use the lecture-based and teacher centered, thus the learning achievement of students is lower than expected learning standard and the instructional media don’t have enough supporting and appropriate learning outcome of the students found in many institutes. Therefore, how to teaching methodology that use the efficient learning and teaching to promote pre-service teachers as quality and producing a prototype of instructional media. Project-based learning [6, 7] is a learning model which students gain knowledge and skills by working and respond to engaging and complex questions, problems, or challenge an appropriate for learning and teaching in engineer or technology. In Thai’ education rolled out strategies for the 21st learning century, the teachers’ professional standards proposed in Thailand for the 21st learning century are: (1) teachers’ professional functions, (2) learning knowledge management and (3) relationship with parents and communities. Thus, in this paper, we propose the DAPOA learning model based on project-based [8, 9] consists of 5 learning activities in corresponding to the pre-service teachers’ professional standards, as follows:

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(1) Determination step that assign and find the interesting problem issues or topics, (2) Analysis step that search the how method to solve the solutions and determine activity and lesson plan by brainstorming of learners, (3) Planning and Design step that design the structure and operating process, (4) Operation step which students will learn and practice following determined activities and, (5) Assessment step that students will be measured and evaluated to validate the performance of learning and teaching. The process of developed DAPOA learning model was shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. The project-based DAPOA learning model and Assessment forms

3 Research Methodology The operation procedure of improvement of pre-service teachers’ professional competencies using project-based DAPOA learning was shown in Fig. 3. In learning and teaching in classroom by using the DAPAO learning development model, the preservice teachers will be prepared to have basic knowledge desired both generic and specific knowledge for teachers, and trained to have teachers’ professional competencies. The pre-service teachers must understand to apply the process of project-based DAPOA learning model for learning and teaching in the classroom. After that, the preservice teachers must participate internship in educational establishment for year. The pre-service teachers’ roles are changed from learner to teacher with appropriate competencies. Finally, the efficiency of teaching management in the education establishment is measured and evaluated.

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Start - Learn about the basics of majors - Training how to using tools - Learn about Learning management - Medias created - Pratice for intern service

Classroom Learning

- Project-based learning - Create Project

DAPOA Learning Model Improve Assessment Project Pass

- Pratice for intern service

Preparation for Internship

Improve Curriculum Content Media

- Create manual, Medias

Pass

Observation

- Observation on the intern experience

Assessment

- Assessment by cooperative teacher - Assessment by the university supervisor

End

Fig. 3. The flow chart of teaching process using the project-based DAPOA learning model

The detailed processes of the project-based DAPOA learning model to encourage the in-service teachers to have professional competencies of the Teacher’s Council of Thailand, are as follows; (1) Determining (D) step; teachers will determinate the learning topics from research papers or various information sources. Pre-service teacher will search and study the related basic information and theory to link to new content topics, as shown in Fig. 4.

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Fig. 4. Determining Process

(2) Analyzing (A) step, students will analyze feasibility to find how best method to solving determined solutions by brainstorming of each student group and teachers will provide consultant in the solving problems in learning, as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Analyzing Process

(3) Planning and Designing (P) step, students will plan and design the operating process using the simulation programs or technology tools, as shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6. Planning and Designing Process

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(4) Operating (O) step, students will create the project following the determined activity plan. Students will get practical skills by doing project and troubleshooting, as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7. Operation Process

(5) Assessment “A” step, after creating assigned project, students must present finding results of the constructed project. Teachers will advise and evaluate the learning achievement of learners, as shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8. The measurement and evaluation by examining and presenting in classroom

After using the DAPOA learning model, the pre-service teachers’ professional competencies consistent to the Teacher’s Council of Thailand, are assessed by 3 sections, as constructed final projects, knowledge examination in the classroom, and internship result using observation, interviewing together with mentoring teachers in entrepreneurs.

4 Implement in Vocational Internship In implementing the DAPOA learning development model to improve of the preservice teachers’ professional competencies, the sampling group was 19 bachelors’ preservice teachers. When pre-service teachers were trained using the teaching process

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with DAPOA learning development model, they must participate an internship in vocational or technical college for a year. In a classroom, the teaching process using the project-based DAPOA learning model, consists of 3 steps: (1) to guide teaching method using the DAPOA learning model, (2) to organize and implement learning activities following the developed instructional manual and (3) to evaluate learning achievement of students [9, 10]. The pre-service teachers have apprentice experience every 2–4 weeks, the university supervisor will visit in technical college to observe internship and to interview the mentoring teachers for evaluating pre-service teachers. The atmosphere of learning and teaching in classroom and coaching in apprentice establishments using the developed DAPOA learning model were illustrated in Figs. 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Fig. 9. The learning and teaching in classroom

Fig. 10. The learning and teaching activities

Fig. 11. The activities of apprentice experiences

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Fig. 12. The assessment using interviewing of pre-service teachers

5 Research Results After implementing the project-based DAPOA learning development model to improve the pre-service teachers’ professional competencies using sampling group of 19 preservice teachers of program in industrial education of Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Thailand. The research results found that the students’ satisfaction was at very high level (mean equaled to 4.66), as shown in Table 1, and the result of 3 mentoring teacher’ satisfaction for pre-service teacher was also at high level (mean equaled to 4.31), as shown in Table 2. Suggestions for teaching and learning management is to provide teaching co-activities for learners with different basic knowledge and emotional readiness. Moreover, teachers need to have knowledge of working research to develop the teaching model as well as possible according to the objectives of the different curriculums. In considering the study result of the students who passed the study by the pre-service teachers, it can be seen that the students had average learning achievement at a good level according to the expected learning outcome of the curriculum.

Table 1. The results of students’ satisfaction for project-based DAPOA learning model Evaluated topics

Satisfaction level  S:D: Interpretation X

1. The DAPOA learning model 4.71 2. Learning activities 4.67 3. Duration of the learning activities 4.59 4. Learning promote collaboration and critical thinking skills 4.66 5. Assessments 4.68 Summary 4.66

0.27 0.22 0.29 0.19 0.18

Very Very Very Very Very Very

high high high high high high

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Table 2. The results of mentoring teachers’ satisfaction for pre-service teachers’ competencies Evaluated topics

Satisfaction level  S:D: Interpretation X

1. Knowledge 2. Practicing skill 3. Personality 4. Punctuality 5. Problem-solving Summary

4.13 4.33 4.67 4.08 4.33 4.31

0.31 0.31 0.14 0.38 0.14

High High Very high High High High

6 Conclusion This research has presented the improvement of pre-service teachers’ professional competencies using the project-based DAPOA learning model. The DAPOA learning development model can use to apply in learning and teaching for training of pre-service teachers in the vocational and technical college. The important competencies for the pre-service teachers were following; (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

theoretical and practical skills, teaching and knowledge transferring skills, solving problem, collaborative and critical thinking skill, communication and using languages effectively, Long life learning skills.

This research focused on how to create the professional competencies of pre-service teachers using the DAPOA learning model. Moreover, the DAPOA learning development model can be used to be as a prototype in the teaching development model based on competency curriculum and to encourage the pre-service teachers to be able to develop and produce the modern learning innovation for the Education 4.0 era. Moreover, the DAPOA learning development model can be used to apply in teaching and learning that encourage learners to have knowledge, practical and working skills and to have experience of solving the problem of working in real life according to the 21st century of learning skill.

References 1. Royal Thai Government Gazette: National Education Act B.E. 2542 (1999) and Amendments (Second National Education Act B.E. 2545 (2002). Vol. 116 Part 74 a 19 August 1999: 4. (in Thai) 2. Sokolov, B.V., Yusupov, R.M., Okhtilev, M.Y., Zjuban, A.V.: The methodology of situational and competence centers development in order to increase the national economic and social stability. In: 2017 IEEE II International Conference on Control in Technical Systems (CTS), St. Petersburg, pp. 3–4 (2017)

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3. Kickmeier-Rust, M.D., Albert, D.: A domain model for smart 21st century skills training in game-based virtual worlds. In: 2012 IEEE 12th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Rome, pp. 680–681 (2012) 4. Samineni, A., Mohan, S., Mohan Murari, B.: A practical approach of revitalizing K-12 education in 21st century. In: Proceedings of 2013 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning for Engineering (TALE), Bali, pp. 136–140 (2013) 5. Qamar, S.Z., Kamanathan, A., Al-Rawahi, N.Z.: Teaching product design in line with Bloom’s taxonomy and ABET student outcomes. In: 2016 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Abu Dhabi, pp. 1017–1022 (2016) 6. Kashefi, H., Yusof, Y.M.: A framework for integrating cooperative learning and creative problem solving in engineering mathematics. In: Proceeding of the 5th IEEE Conference on Engineering Education, pp. 49–52 (2013) 7. Bowen, Z., Chuan, L.: Research key technique of knowledge management in hydraulic project base on process. In: 2011 International Conference on Business Management and Electronic Information, Guangzhou, pp. 697–701 (2011) 8. Hsu, Y., Shiue, Y.: Exploring the community of inquiry in the interdisciplinary project-based learning through collaborative technology. In: 2017 International Conference on Applied System Innovation (ICASI), Sapporo, pp. 1785–1788 (2017) 9. Balve, P., Albert, M.: Project-based learning in production engineering at the Heilbronn learning factory. Procedia CIRP 32, 104–108 (2015) 10. Taheri, S.M., et al.: Evaluating the effectiveness of problem solving techniques and tools in programming. In: Proceeding of Science and Information Conference (SAI), London, UK, pp. 928–932, July 2015

Chat-Interviews as a Means to Explore Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions on Developing Video Games with Unity in Computer Science Classes Oswald Comber(&), Renate Motschnig, and Hubert Mayer Faculty of Computer Science, CSLEARN – Educational Technologies, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria {oswald.comber,renate.motschnig, hubert.mayer}@univie.ac.at

Abstract. In this paper we explore how students perceived developing video games with Unity. The hypothesis behind the endeavour is that the prospect of being able to develop one’s own video game in a computer science class would make it easier for students to overcome the steep learning curve typically in place when learning to program. As a means of research, we employed chatinterviews for answering the overall research question “How do students perceive a learning sequence aimed at the development of computational thinking and coding competencies through video-game development?”. More specifically, we wanted to know whether students found the task of game-development motivating or not, which aspect or project-phase of game-development they found most motivating, most entertaining, most appealing, least appealing, most difficult, etc. Furthermore, we were interested in what students found most helpful while working with Unity, what they had learned, and which mode of learning – listening to lectures or independent work – appealed to them most. The analysis of the results of the first cycle of chat-interviews has shown that the main motivational factors were the focus on game-design and the option of cooperative work in small teams. The programming act itself using Visual Studio and C# was seen as the most difficult activity. The results of our research indicate that learners are highly motivated by the outlook of developing an interactive video game as opposed to other programming applications. Chatinterviews improved the research process by eliminating one of the most timeconsuming steps – the transcription of interview data – and allowing some learners to more openly express their opinions. Keywords: Video game development Chat-interviews
Mixed methods


K-12 education
Learning to code


1 Introduction The use of digital media is becoming ever more the default rather than the add-on. In this context it is vital to offer education that not only instructs students how to apply digital tools but also motivates and inspires them to be active participants in the process © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 903–914, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_88

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of socio-technical advances. To achieve this capacity, computational thinking competencies [1] have been acknowledged as one of the core keys to success, besides other 21st century competencies such as communication, critical thinking, flexibility, etc. But the question emerges what would be an effective and sustainable path towards cultivating computational thinkers who value collaboration, problem solving and coding skills by also having them experience by hand how these skills are essential for succeeding in tasks. Our approach for answering the question of what setting fosters coding and problem-solving skills and, furthermore, motivates, engages and challenges teenage learners was to develop video games with recent technology. In this paper, we first describe the role of video games in learning and video game development in the classroom. We also depict what computational thinking means in our case, how computational thinking is connected with programming and how we aim to promote it by letting K-12 students develop video games with the Unity [2] Game Development Environment (GDE). In this context, the first class in which Unity had been adopted will be sketched from the perspective of the teacher, including the classdesign of eight two-hour units and the accompanying tutorial that was designed to support students when working independently and/or in teams. The hypothesis behind the whole endeavour is that the prospect of being able to develop one’s own video game in class would make it easier for students to overcome the steep learning curve typically in place when learning to code and develop with an industry-grade game development environment.

2 Related Research and Theoretical Background 2.1

Computational Thinking

Computational Thinking is a highly important competency in the 21st century. Papert [3] recognised the magnitude of computational thinking as an essential skill for problem solving and learning. Papert envisioned the personal computer as a powerful learning and education machine for any individual but especially for children and coined the term “The children’s machine” [4]. In an influential article, Wing [1] describes a skillset and an attitude that goes beyond programming and is valuable for general problem solving – computational thinking. Computational thinking holds characteristics such as “thinking recursively”, “parallel processing”, “interpreting code as data and data as code”, “abstraction and decomposition” and “appropriate representation for a problem” [1] but also refers to competences, attitudes and behaviours that can be viewed as a culture of participating (in), shaping and building a society in which technology is present in daily ubiquitous use. Nowadays smartphones, smart homes and assisted mobility have become common in daily life while their ubiquitous usage leads to an immense magnitude of data being processed and stored in data centres around the world. And in the following years the challenges for shaping and building a wholesome technology-interwoven society will become even greater. As such, promoting computational thinking will be essential.

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Since computational thinking goes way beyond programming, creating programs or simply producing code sequences are both a particularly good source for fostering essential parts of computational thinking in learners [5]. To promote computational thinking effectively and sustainably, the motivation and engagement of the learners is a key factor. At this point video game development comes into play. Video game development is very appealing to most of the young learners and can boost motivation and engagement in computer science education [6–8]. Learning to program with dedicated programming learning environments that facilitate a playful approach became very popular in computer science education. Programming learning environments offer a playful start with a low threshold and shallow learning curve. Games like Code Combat [9] or CodeMonkey [10] where creating code is a central part of playing the game, e.g. resolving a level, offer a very easy-going start. The solutions in those environments are rather linear but still valuable. More creativity and openness are nurtured with programming learning tools such as Scratch [11], Snap! [12], NetLogo [13], Kara [14], Greenfoot [15], Agent Sheets [16] and Agent Cubes [17], where learners can draw from a wide spectrum of commands and possibilities; and can thus implement their own more or less elaborate and sophisticated programs. To step beyond the beginner tools, in the approach that was studied in this paper, students endeavoured video game development with the Unity Game Development Environment (GDE). Unity is widespread in the community of professionals, semiprofessionals, hobbyists and enthusiasts. In postsecondary education, Unity has been employed successfully [18] and in secondary education it has also been put into practice [19]. Qualitative research in classrooms offers the opportunity to deal with small sizes of sample groups and achieve more detailed in-depth results. Qualitative content analysis [20, 21] refers to a rule-based process of dealing with texts systematically. Qualitative interviewing [22] can provide hereby a good basis for gathering data from the individuals in our area of research. As such, we have chosen chat-interviews as the method of qualitative research in our project. 2.2

Chat-Interviews

Chat-interviews come with advantages and disadvantages which are valuable to know before research using them is conducted. Advantages Initially, it can be stated that chat-interviews are inexpensive and convenient [23]. Also, chat-interviews “… can be more acceptable to people who do not want to or are unable to attend face-to-face interviews.” [24]. This notion is especially crucial in the educational context, since the shyness of students can be an inhibitor for gaining proper data. Furthermore, the researchers have the opportunity to immediately request further details, explanations or to clarify a question during the interview process – which would not be possible with other techniques (i.e. online surveys). Another major advantage of this techniques is the automatic transcription of the interviews in the form of the chat log which completely removes the transcription step

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from the workflow. Formatting work might still be helpful for the analysis but can be skipped or circumvented by using proper tools (i.e. formatting scripts). Being able to skip the step of transcribing interviews saves a lot of time and money which can then be used to improve the research process and analysis. Disadvantages Chat-interviews are – compared to face-to-face interviews – oftentimes slow (due to typing), lack conversational clues and are disrupting in their flow through follow-up probing [23]. Additionally, due to their volatile nature, chat-interviews require more cooperation from the interviewees than other interview forms – otherwise the results will be difficult to process, e.g. due to internet slang. Some students struggled expressing themselves via text while other shyer students blossomed and explained their experiences vividly. Lastly, setting up chat-interviews may require additional software and preparation work. Researchers also have to invest additional time into conversing with the students using the chat program. Regardless, the time saved during transcription far outweighs the extra time spent conducting interviews.

3 Research Questions, Methodology, Implementation and Actions 3.1

Research Questions

The overall research question was “How do students perceive a learning sequence aimed at the development of computational thinking and – in particular – coding competencies through video-game development in Unity?”. To answer this question, we employed a mixed-method-approach [25–27]. We conducted chat-interviews with students and combined the interviews with the data of a questionnaire. The guidelines for the chat-interviews included a total of 25 questions. The questions were organized in five inquiry sections: Problems & Solutions, Motivation, Teamwork, Creativity and Learning Processes & Successful Learning. The sub-questions we strived to answer were: Q1. Does video game development increase motivation during the lessons? Q2. Does video game development increase competencies for teamwork? Q3. Does video game development increase the understanding of the logic of programs? Q4. Does video game development increase programming-skills? To answer the sub-questions 11 chat-interviews with 15-year-old students were analysed. The results were combined in a mixed methods-approach [28, 29] with 10 questionnaires completed by the same students one week prior. The questionnaire was comprised of items for gathering demographic data, media usage and usage habits and motivational aspects in addition to a group of selfevaluation questions. The chat interviews provided an opportunity for flexible answers, while the self-evaluation portion of the questionnaire was employed to make which was important for the research – was gathered in a straightforward manner.

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Subject of Research – Video Game Development Activities in Classrooms

To fulfil the general aim of the research project, namely to research the effect of video game development on the programming education of secondary level students, the learners developed 2D video games with the Unity Engine (ver. 5.6.2f1) as part of their weekly computer science class. The lessons focusing on the project took 100 min each and extended over a period of three months with an average of 8 lessons per participating school. To further the project’s reach beyond basic programming skills, we included creative activities. For instance, we integrated arts education by having the students design their own game characters – first with a pencil and later with a black permanent maker. The resulting assets were scanned and processed using GIMP [30] before being imported into Unity (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Asset created by a student, imported into a Unity-scene

The tutorial itself revolves around two forest elephants who elastically bounce around a forest in a platformer-styled level trying to rescue their forest from a machine that changes the law of physics to harvest oil. This story idea stemmed from the idea of nurturing the students’ experimentation with Unity’s physics engine while also integrating aspects of environmental education. In each lesson, the learners were provided with a combination of short lectures (i.e. presentations of the next step or concept), an autonomous working environment by following the tutorial and guidance by the teacher and tutors. Additionally, to foster team-work and communication, all students were encouraged to provide one-another with support and assistance while working. The game development process was conveyed using a tutorial document for a simple game we named “BouncyFant” [31].

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4 Methodology The choice of chat-interviews as a method, was based on various parameters due to our research setting. Within our project, we strived to efficiently gather qualitative data from several students while letting them participate and benefit as much as possible, which is also a main notion of the Sparkling Science program [32]. The chat-interviews were conducted after eight initial sessions of the video game development – the duration of each session was 100 min. The research took place as a participatory research scenario in which students were not only subjects of research but also actively conducted research in the spirit of citizen science. This meant for our chatinterviews that 17-year old students from 7th grade Secondary school started in their psychology class by getting an introduction into qualitative research, where the basics of Qualitative Research [21, 33] and interviewing in research [22] were covered briefly. In the following lesson, one week later, students and researchers brainstormed for questions and developed the guiding questions for the chat-interviews. Subsequently, the questions were sorted and refined by the researchers. In another session – prior to the actual chat-interviews – the collaboratively developed guidelines were reviewed together with the 7th grade school students. The researchers explained the process of the interviews to the students and the interviewers conducted a test run of the chatinterviews in the computer lab. For this purpose, the students were divided into two groups – one group was assigned to be the interviewers and the other group was assigned to be interviewed. After the first round of the test interviews the roles were switched, so that each student could experience the role of the interviewer and the interviewed person. The next step was conducting the interviews with the 14 to 15-year old 5th grade students who completed eight game development lessons during the weeks before the interviews. The maximum duration of the interviews was 90 min with a 10-min break during the interviews. Technically the interviews were organized in an online course in Moodle [34] in separately set up chat rooms – that meant one room per interviewer and interviewee. The analysis was then performed as Qualitative Content Analysis inspired by a sample study conducted by Gläser-Zikuda [20, 33, 35]. Mirroring her technique, the replies to each question were collected and for each question a single-$rater designed categories based on the replies. To create the categories each reply was analysed for its content and sorted, for instance all replies mentioning or referring to the aspect “teamwork” were categorized as such (a reply could be part of multiple categories). The number of replies in each category was then used to generate summative statements about the project and learning process. These summative statements were meant to reveal how important an aspect was for the class as a whole. For instance, answers to a question on what served as motivation for the leaners had categories named “game character”, “playing the game”, “the teacher”, “teamwork” and “further studies planned”. Additionally, the individual answers to each question were considered for improvements of the instructional approach and the learning materials.

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5 Research Results The results of the chat-interviews were combined with the answers to a self-evaluation section in a questionnaire completed by the learners after they had finished their video game development activities. Students completed items to answer distinct questions in correlation with our research questions Q1–Q4 in the areas of motivation, teamworkcompetencies, skills in project management, understanding of the logic of programs and programming skills. Students were asked to set their answers in relation to a comparable, learning scenario in which they learned to code for the console with C#. The consideration behind establishing a comparison to another scenario was that simply asking for the level of agreement to the statement “Videogame development was motivating!” with answer options ranging from fully agreed to fully disagreed was not distinct enough for our research-interest. So instead, we employed question-items such as “Through game development motivation during the lessons increased or decreased in comparison to the regular curriculum!” with the answer options “strongly decreased”, “decreased”, “no change”, “increased”, “strongly increased”. The following questions (Q1–Q4) were answered by a group of 14 to 15-year old students who participated in the project and programmed the “BouncyFant” game. Q1. Does video game development increase motivation during the lessons? Sustaining motivation throughout a computer science class project is crucial for successful learning. Our results showed an increase in motivation in the vast majority of students during the project in comparison to the regular curriculum. This could be due to an increase in intrinsic motivation through the video game context of the programming exercises. This notion is evident not only from the survey results (Fig. 2) but also the replies from the chat interviews. One student for instance said that what motivated them was “that in the end I will have a game and when my game character

Fig. 2. Influence of video game development on motivation

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moved, I was even more motivated.” In general, the chat-interviews showed that programming a playable game was the most motivating factor, followed by the teachers and designing a game character. Q2. Does video game development increase competences for teamwork? A core element of the project was teamwork. Teamwork competences are highly relevant in the ICT context. Thus, it is crucial to ask whether video game development increases these competences directly or at least provides contexts for students to cooperate and foster teamwork. The results of Q2 showed that students estimate their teamwork skills to have increased through the project (Fig. 3). The chat-interviews provided insight in the reasons for this development. Teamwork was the most mentioned entertainment aspect of the project according to the interview results. Working together intrinsically motivated the students to fulfil their learning goals as to be seen from a student stating, “while working in pairs we had fun in particular”.

Fig. 3. Influence of video game development on teamwork

Q3. Does video game development increase the understanding of the logic of programs? Understanding the underlying logics of a program or basic algorithm is an essential aspect of computational thinking. Our results have shown that there were individual replies that confirmed that video game development fostered computational thinking more strongly than the regular curriculum. However, since the regular cs-class curriculum already strongly focuses on teaching computational thinking it comes to no surprise that video game development only had a slightly more positive influence (Fig. 4). However, in conjunction with the other results, this continuity in effectivity appears to indicate that video game development serves as an equally valid method of teaching computer sciences and computational thinking as any traditional curriculum (Fig. 5).

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Fig. 4. Influence of video game development on understanding programs

Q4. Does video game development increase programming-skills? Lastly, on the question whether programming skills were increased by game development there was a strong consensus of 90% for an increase in programming skills (Fig. 5). This overlaps with the results of the chat-interviews that ranked programming as the most mentioned category throughout most questions. In the chat-interviews many students referred back to different programming concepts and even employed some jargon, thus, proving an understanding of the taught concepts.

Fig. 5. Influence of video game development on programming-skills

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6 Outcomes and Limitations The analysis of the results of the first cycle of chat-interviews has shown that the main motivational factors were the focus on game-design and the option of cooperative work in small teams. The programming act using Visual Studio and C# itself was seen as the most difficult activity. In the interviews students directly or indirectly referred to programming concepts (e.g. loops and inheritance) which were taught in class. Their choice in direct and indirect references also provided some insight into whether students internalized the abstract programming concepts. Students also stated that they became more open to ask questions, find alternative solutions, research online or work with others to solve problems which shows an improvement in autonomy and problemsolving skills. Furthermore, a major outcome are our findings about chat-interviews as a method for conducting research with 14–15-year-old students. Interviews via chat were highly effective from an organisational and practical perspective as they removed the necessity of additional steps such as interview transcription. Besides, chat-interviews come along with major benefits such as more carefully considered answers. However, the answers needed some categorization which proved as a challenge. Hence, to increase validity, we combined the results of the content analyses with the results of an ordinally-scaled self-evaluation questionnaire. Partially, a reduced inhibition for of interview partners who are more introverted in face-to-face conversation was noted by the teacher and tutors. As such, learners were more open to criticising the learning materials when talking about them via chat than when they were asked in person by other students. But there are also disadvantages to such an approach such as potential technical problems, a reduction in the conversation flow due to typing and an occasionally lower information density when compared to verbal interviews. Regarding limitations, it has to be mentioned that due to the length of a project iteration only a small sample size of students could be investigated.

7 Summary The results of our research indicate that learners are highly motivated by the outlook of developing an interactive video game as opposed to other programming applications. In regard to the learning mode, there was a split between autonomous learning and learning with initial instruction by a teacher, but most learners preferred teamwork with other students – especially when solving problems – which shows that video game development increases team competences. Videogame development appears to be a very suitable approach to teaching programming to 14 to 15-year-old students while also fostering teamwork and motivating intrinsically. In general, the results of the chat interviews and the survey show an increase in teamwork competences, programming skills and motivation in comparison to the regular non-video game focused curriculum. Regarding our research method, chat-interviews have proven as a sophisticated tool for gathering data about the learning process and the connected needs of students. Chatinterviews improved the research process by eliminating one of the most timeconsuming steps – the transcription of interview data – and allowing some learners to

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more openly express their opinions, for instance towards the learning materials. As such, the inherent practicability of this techniques and its relevancy for education research – especially in the ICT sector – is recognizable. Furthermore, the method provides clear answers to complex questions directly from the subjects of research, especially in a mixed method approach, i.e. by cross-checking with the results of a questionnaire. However, chat-interviews are not perfect and susceptible to various issues that can arise during the process. Therefore, it is essential to develop this technique and improve it to make it a reliable and easy-to-use tool for educational research which will be a goal for the second project cycle. Such an improvement could be the application of further tools to conduct and process chat interviews, for instance formatting scripts.

References 1. Wing, J.M.: Computational thinking. Commun. ACM 49, 33–35 (2006) 2. Unity Technologies (2019). Unity game engine. http://unity3d.com/. Accessed 31 January 2019 3. Papert, S.: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. Basic Books Inc., New York (1980) 4. Papert, S.: The children’s machine. Technol. Rev.-Manchester NH- 96, 28 (1993) 5. Lye, S.Y., Koh, J.H.L.: Review on teaching and learning of computational thinking through programming: what is next for K-12? Comput. Hum. Behav. 41, 51–61 (2014) 6. Zhang, F., Kaufman, D., Fraser, S.: Using video games in computer science education. Eur. Sci. J. ESJ 10, 37–52 (2014) 7. Wang, A., Biu, W.: The Use of Game Development in Computer Science and Software Engineering Education. http://www.idi.ntnu.no/*alfw/publications/Use_of_Games_In_SE_ and_CS_Education.pdf. Accessed 2 August 2018 8. Comber, O., Motschnig, R.: Challenges and opportunities in employing game development in computer science classes. In: presented at the EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology 2015, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (2015) 9. Saines, G.,. Erickson, S, Winter, N.: Code Combat. https://codecombat.com/. Accessed 11 August 2018 10. CodeMonkey| Coding Game for Kids. https://www.playcodemonkey.com/. Accessed 20 May 2019 11. Resnick, M., et al.: Scratch: programming for all. Commun. ACM 52, 60–67 (2009) 12. Mönig, J., Harvey, B.: Snap! — Build Your Own Blocks (2018). https://snap.berkeley.edu/. Accessed 18 September 2018 13. Wilensky, U., Rand, W.: An introduction to agent-based modeling: modeling natural, social, and engineered complex systems with NetLogo. MIT Press, Cambridge (2015) 14. Reichert, R.: Website - Kara. https://www.swisseduc.ch/informatik/karatojava/index.html. Accessed 18 September 2018 15. Kölling, M.: The greenfoot programming environment. ACM Trans. Comput. Educ. 10, 14 (2010) 16. Repenning, A., Sumner, T.: Agentsheets: a medium for creating domain-oriented visual languages. Computer 28, 17–25 (1995) 17. Ioannidou, A., Repenning, A., Webb, D.C.: AgentCubes: Incremental 3D end-user development. J. Visual Lang. Comput. 20, 236–251 (2009)

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18. Dickson, P.E.: Using unity to teach game development: when you’ve never written a game. In: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Vilnius, Lithuania (2015) 19. Çakır, N.A., Gass, A., Foster, A., Lee, F.J.: Development of a game-design workshop to promote young girls’ interest towards computing through identity exploration. Comput. Educ. 108, 115–130 (2017) 20. Mayring, P.: Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. In: Mruck, G.M.K. (ed.) Handbuch Qualitative Forschung in der Psychologie, pp. 601–613. Springer, Wiesbaden (2010) 21. Flick, U.: Qualitative sozialforschung (2010) 22. Kvale, S.: Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks (1994) 23. Davis, M., Bolding, G., Hart, G., Sherr, L., Elford, J.: Reflecting on the experience of interviewing online: perspectives from the Internet and HIV study in London. AIDS care 16, 944–952 (2004) 24. Dunkels, E., Enochsson, A.: Interviews with young people using online chat. In: Encyclopedia of Information Ethics and Security, pp. 403–410. IGI Global, Pennsylvania (2007) 25. Maxcy, S.J.: Pragmatic threads in mixed methods research in the social sciences: the search for multiple modes of inquiry and the end of the philosophy of formalism. In: Handbook of Mixed Methods in Social and Behavioral Research, pp. 51–89 (2003) 26. Olsen, W.: Triangulation in social research: qualitative and quantitative methods can really be mixed. Dev. Sociol. 20, 103–118 (2004) 27. Teddlie, C., Tashakkori, A.: Mixed methods research. In: The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 285–300 (2011) 28. Jick, T.D.: Mixing qualitative and quantitative methods: Triangulation in action. Adm. Sci. Q. 24(4), 602–611 (1979) 29. Brannen, J.: Mixing Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Research. Routledge, Abingdon (2017) 30. The GIMP Team GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program. https://www.gimp.org. Accessed 8 August 2018 31. Comber, O., Haselberger, D., Mayer, H., Hörbe, M., Unterweger, D.: Bouncy Fant Tutorial (2019). https://learn2programe.github.io/learn2proGrAME-Grundlagen/0280-bouncyfant/ T00-introduction/. Accessed 4 April 2019 32. BMBWF - Federal Ministry of Education Science and Research and OeAD - Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research (2018). Sparkling Science a programme of Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. https://www. sparklingscience.at/en. 31 May 2019 33. Mayring, P.: Die Praxis der Qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse. Beltz, Weinheim (2005) 34. Dougiamas, M.: Moodle - Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. https://moodle.org/. 25 May 2019 35. Gläser-Zikuda, M.: Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse in der Lernstrategie- und Lernemotionsforschung: na (2005)

Interventions to Enhance Multinational Collaborative Projects as a Project-Based Learning Experience Ivan Enrique Esparragoza1(&), Jorge Rodriguez2, and Maria J. Evans1 1

The Pennsylvania State University – Brandywine, Media, PA, USA {iee1,mje226}@psu.edu 2 Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA [email protected]

Abstract. Multinational collaborative projects have been used as a projectbased learning approach to prepare students with professional and global skills in engineering. However, the implementation of those projects is challenging due to the complexity of having students geographically dispersed, with different languages, cultures, time zones, and backgrounds, and using information and communication technology (ICT) tools to facilitate collaboration in a multinational project. The purpose of this work is to identify relevant issues affecting the effectiveness of multinational collaborative projects as a projectbased learning experience and provide the corresponding interventions to improve such academic practice. Expected outcomes of the interventions are summarized and examples of the results of some interventions already implemented are presented. The challenge of dealing with different issues inherent in this type of initiative can jeopardize the learning experience of the students, transforming what can be a positive experience into a negative one. Keywords: Multinational projects
International collaboration
Project-Based Learning

1 Introduction 1.1

Multinational Collaboration

As a result of the globalization of economies, multinational teams have become an essential necessity in current projects. This is particularly evident in engineering projects where design and manufacturing/production aspects are involved. As a matter of fact, for many products being designed in industry, there is a global criterion to search for universality of the design, thus producing a global product that would require a minimal number of changes in order to be applicable to a different segment of the market. In such cases, international collaboration happens due to the involvement of team members who are at different global locations and working on various interrelated aspects of the design [1]. Such collaborative process requires that enterprises apply modern technologies for communication and interaction, which means that team © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 915–923, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_89

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members need to have the proper knowledge and training of those ICT tools. Therefore, it is essential that engineering students have the opportunity to develop their communication skills, and also share their knowledge, in a collaborative environment. Unfortunately, most academic training only engages students on individual projects that do not involve teamwork and communication skills, leaving the development of such skills for after their academic careers [2]. This practice is changing in order to offer updated opportunities for student learning, and engineering schools are adopting programs that expose their students to international experiences and help them develop the required professional skills [3–5]. The pedagogical approach of Project-Based Learning (PBL) has been directly utilized to provide students with the skills needed to perform teamwork in solving more realistic projects. This approach has proven to be one that results in broader and deeper learning while providing an environment that allows for exploration and discussion. This ‘learning by doing’ approach has his roots in the 19th century and has evolved to be the primary choice for design projects where collaboration and communication are essential. It is the basis for most of the multinational collaborations that have been implemented at academic institutions. The interaction among the teams involved in the experience, and among their own members, is of interest since the literature recognizes that teams achieve better results when the collaboration is strong and the social aspect of such collaboration is significant [6]. A work by Barron [7] focused on how the interaction among the team members influences the team’s overall behavior and individual’s learning. In his work, the collaboration is identified as a dual-problem space: the content space related to the problems to be solved, and the relational space related to the collaborations among team members. 1.2

Factors in Collaborations

Collaborations depend on several factors such as objectives, environment, participants, and resources available, with characteristics like interest, preparedness, and motivation being important for a successful project. This situation is present in all types of collaborations, with engineering design projects not being the exception. As with all human activities, motivation is one of the main driving forces for success. Participants need to feel that they are doing something meaningful, and that they are working towards a worthwhile goal. Similarly, the environment where a team is working has direct impact on the success of the collaboration. When students feel that they are valued as part of a team, they are more likely to communicate and participate by sharing their opinions and ideas, even when the communication occurs in a second language as is common in multinational collaborations. The tools and resources available for teamwork and collaboration are also a key consideration for a successful project and a positive student experience. Technology offers a wide variety of ever-improving hi-tech ICT tools for communication and collaboration. This poses a continual challenge in the implementation of multinational collaborations due partially to the available tools, and in part to the need to constantly update the logistics of the collaboration. Additional factors that need to be considered in multinational projects are related to the intrinsic values and characteristics of each participant region/nation. Many of the

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factors that play a role in defining a successful collaboration are not directly related to the technical aspects of the problem at hand. These are factors that are peripheral to the technical aspects, but still impact the collaboration. Among these local factors are culture, language, traditions, etc. For example, culture most likely has an effect on the dynamics of team activities, the way communications take place, and even on the level of exchange of information and ideas between participants. The main objective of this study is to identify relevant issues affecting the effectiveness of multinational collaborative projects as a project-based learning experience, and discuss the corresponding interventions to improve such academic practice. Expected outcomes of the applied interventions are summarized and examples of the results of some interventions already implemented are presented.

2 Background A multinational collaboration was implemented several years ago with academic institutions from the Americas and Italy. An engineering design problem was assigned, as part of a course requirement, to the various teams participating each semester that the collaboration was implemented. The main goal is to foster international collaboration, and to offer an opportunity for the students to develop professional skills through international teamwork during the solution of a design problem. However, a real challenge of this practice has been to create an effective interaction among the students participating in this type of project, to maintain the flow of information, and to motivate student engagement in both the project and their learning [8]. The logistics of this multinational collaboration include clusters of teams from different countries working on the same design project. The collaborative clusters are formed to allow the international teams to exchange information and enrich the final design. Clusters are created in such a way that teams formed on each participating institution are paired with teams from other countries to enforce communication and collaborative work. The interaction of the students is expected to take place using the formal means of communication that has been established for the collaboration. These include audio-video conferences, email, and a cloud application selected for the project. Additionally, teams are permitted to use informal means of communication to keep the interaction active during the project and this includes social media, texting, cellular phones, and other online communication tools as the teams consider appropriate. The projects last for six to eight weeks and teams are required to interact for at least four or five weeks, including four scheduled video-conferences. The multinational collaborative project has gone through several phases from initial implementation to the current offering. Three phases can be established: Phase I for the initial years the collaboration was developed, Phase II when the actual assessment of collaboration and motivation took place [9, 10], and Phase III when pedagogical interventions are being implemented. This study is now in Phase III and it is an initial report on interventions that have taken place in the latest offering of the multinational experience. Participation from different locations varies each time, with up to eight different institutions from seven different countries participating (around 215 students).

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Current Offering

For this study, there were four institutions participating from three different countries. The academic institutions are Politecnico di Milano, Universitate de Santa Catarina, Penn State University – Brandywine, and Western Michigan University. A total of 101 students participated and they were assigned to 8 clusters, with basically three geographic locations represented in each cluster. Descriptive statistics are given in the tables below, where it is worthwhile to mention couple of situations: the almost-even split in terms of gender, and the small percentage of participants from Italy (Tables 1, 2, 3). Table 1. Gender distribution Gender Frequency Percent (%) Male 51 50.5 Female 50 49.5 Total 101 100.0

Table 2. Geographical distribution Location Frequency Percent (%) Brazil 47 46.5 Italy 4 4.0 USA 50 49.5 Total 101 100.0

Table 3. Class standing distribution Class standing Frequency Percent (%) First year 17 26.8 Second year 51 51.5 Third year 33 32.7 Total 101 100.0

3 Approach - Interventions This report uses several years of documented challenges experienced during the multinational collaboration in courses with engineering design content. The most significant challenges are grouped by themes. These themes are analyzed from the pedagogical perspective to determine the issues affecting the learning experience, to proposed academic interventions to improve the learning experience. The interventions are classified in behavioural interventions with the goal of improving the professional behaviour of the participants, and technical interventions with the aim of improving the technical aspects of the project and the interaction.

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Based on observations by participant instructors, as well as feedback from participant students, there are certain aspects of the multinational collaboration project that call for academic intervention. The factors that were addressed in this offering are: • Technical 1. Issue: Class standing of participants. Collaborations began several years ago with only first-year students, but have evolved and grown to include participants with class standing across the entire spectrum in undergraduate courses. Depending on the semester/term offered, students from first year to fourth year (and beyond) are now represented. The most common situation is to have first to third-year students working on a project with the requirements being something that all students can participate in, typically a conceptual design, as an end goal. This resulted in students in upper-level courses finding the project as simple or trivial. Intervention/Action: It was decided to have the project cover almost the full spectrum of design activities, from conceptual design to detailed engineering, providing extension activities for students with higher class standings. To provide time for the additional design activities, the collaboration time was reduced from eight to six weeks. 2. Issue: Consistency of task assignments. This problem arises due to the varying course content being covered at different locations, resulting in terminology and technical requirements that were confusing to students. This situation created some conflicts between students, as well as for the instructors. Intervention/Action: In this case, the decision was to share the project-related information, as well as any pre-requisite relevant material, that students received in their respective courses. It is, in reality, a work-in-progress that began as an agreement between the (four) instructors on the terminology used for the assignments. 3. Issue: Requirements for collaboration sessions. The situation was triggered by teams in the cluster having varying levels of preparation for the required collaboration sessions. This contributed to ineffective collaborative sessions, and produced complaints and/or frustration from the teams. Intervention/Action: Specify Pre- and Post-session reports. In order to have more consistency on the level of preparedness of the teams for the collaborative sessions, reports were required. Specific general content is specified for each one of these reports, which are due usually half a day before their scheduled collaborative session (pre-) and one day after the session (post-) 4. Issue: Option to have a local design. Student feedback was received advocating for each team to be permitted to pursue its own design, eliminating the single final design by the cluster. Intervention/Action: The decision was made to stay with a full design collaboration of the participating teams, which is in line with the expectation in a more realistic multinational design environment. This can be considered a “No-Action” since the overall goal of the project has not changed. However, due to some miscommunication, there were a few clusters that were allowed to pursue their own design.

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• Behavioural 1. Issue: Schedule of required collaboration sessions. The practice had been to require collaboration sessions for every cluster, with the schedule defined by the academic institution responsible for the logistics for the A/V sessions. This resulted in several students being unavailable to attend the sessions, which was detrimental to the overall experience. A pseudo-fix to the issue was to require that at least one member from each local team attend the general cluster session, then brief the entire team regarding the technical discussion that took place during the session. This action still resulted in several students being precluded from participating. Intervention/Action: For this offering, it was decided to allow each cluster to define the best time to have the collaborative sessions, thus improving the level of direct participation from students. Although not a solution for 100% of the students, this contributed to increased participation by students. This action was needed because of the significantly different time zones of the participants, but its success is impacted by the ability of academic institutions to require out-of-class work from students. 2. Issue: Formal and informal means of communication. There is an ongoing situation caused by students in their local environments having various platforms and software, combined with the need of instructors to have some level of information and control over the technical exchanges within the clusters. Formal exchanges have been required as a means to track the flow of ideas and the discussion process during the engineering task. More informal means of communication have been added to avoid placing constraints on the flow of ideas and information. Intervention/Action: It was decided, based on technological developments, to use two platforms for primary communication: Zoom and Slack. In addition to their technical aspects, one goal is to have students differentiating between business communications and personal (social) communications. These platforms allow for activities that are geared towards professional exchanges, e.g., set meeting with specific groups, exchange of documentation online, capabilities to have a record of the flow/process [11, 12]. These are not the only options for business interactions, but Zoom was selected for its accessibility and function, and Slack based on its growing corporate use. 3. Issue: Language of collaboration. This situation has been present at various points when the majority of students in a given cluster are native speakers of a language other than English, then the push is for acceptance of that language during their collaborations. The emphasis has always been in following the standard that English is the accepted language for global interactions. Intervention/Action: English was defined as the language to be used for the collaboration. It was recognized that it might be more appropriate for regional exchanges to rely on a different language; however, it is best to maintain English as the official language for global interaction. Action was taken to explain the choice of English to all teams.

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4. Issue: In the latest offering of this student experience, it was difficult for the instructor to differentiate the work that was being performed locally from the work that was the result of their collaborative efforts. Due to the large number of clusters and teams, it is difficult for instructors to monitor, assess, and evaluate the work of her/his respective teams. Intervention/Action: Student teams are now required to explicitly identify the source of work in their pre- and post-reports for each A/V conference. This intervention has helped in identifying the work done by a specific local team, thus allowing for better evaluation of the work done. It also helps document the evolution of the engineering design process during the execution of the collaborative efforts.

4 Results The results of the aforementioned interventions/actions are a combination of positives and negatives. There was some action taking for each of the issues and, based on observations and informal feedback, it can be said that in general there are positive results and improvements. As with any change, there is a period where there might be some miscommunication or misunderstanding, but these particular interventions produced mostly positive results. The table below summarizes the results for the interventions/actions in this offering (Table 4). Table 4. Summary of observed outcomes. Type T T

B

Intervention/Action Have Stages for Project Design Share Local Class Materials (WIP) Specify Pre- and Post-session Reports Same Design for All (most) Cluster-Defined Session Schedule Use of New Platforms

B B

Defined as English Requirement in Reports

T T B

Better results, needs to link to local requirements Being done currently for next offering Improved results, needs to be more explicit Will stay with single design Improvement. Not a 100% solution Not major issues besides initial glitches, need to use more Will stay as such Better results, needs to be more explicit

5 Discussion and Conclusions The appropriate use of intervention has contributed to improving the overall experience of the students participating in multinational projects. It has, however, been observed that interventions can effectively resolve one issue while causing other issues to arise

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which may impact the effectiveness of the academic experience. The ultimate goal is to have a holistic approach for the interventions to enhance the overall learning experience of these projects. In terms of experience by the students, it can be stated that the overall goal of having them exposed to global collaborations is still accomplished. It is difficult to ensure a positive experience for everyone, which is open for debate on the expectations and motivation behind the issue. However, the more coordinated and complete the project is defined, the more positive experience students will have. This will help prevent the number of ‘issues’ or ‘justifications’ provided. Through the consistent offering of this multinational design collaboration, it has been observed that some students will benefit more from the experience than others. One possible consideration for the future is the specific assignment of students to their local teams, based on the outcome expected for their experience. It is observed that there is a significant number of issues that need to be coordinated before the actual project is assigned to the students. Many of them can be considered to be logistics, but if they are not well defined and specified, it potentially has a negative effect on the experience by the students. Project coordination is the combined responsibility of the instructors, which, together with the potential of supervising or monitoring of the actual technical exchanges, do represent a heavier load for the instructors. A progressive action will be taken in the future offerings, with more specific reporting to be required. The overall conclusion is that the opportunity for continued improvement always exists. Actions towards those improved goals should always be taken, even when they include a higher level of responsibilities for students and/or instructors.

References 1. Klein, M., et al.: The dynamics of collaborative design: insights from complex systems and negotiation research. In: Complex Engineered Systems, pp. 158–174. Springer, Heidelberg (2006) 2. O’Brien, W., Soibelman, L., Elvin, G.: Collaborative design processes: an active-and reflective-learning course in multidisciplinary collaboration. J. Constr. Educ. 8, 78–93 (2003) 3. Esparragoza, I., et al.: Assessing interactions among students geographically dispersed during multinational design projects. In: The 121st ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Indianapolis (2014) 4. Kwon, D., Jang, S.: The impact of multidisciplinary design education on the creative process in collaborative design. , vol. 27, pp. 57–79 (2014) 5. Maury-Ramírez, H., Pinzón, R.J., Esparragoza, I.E.: International collaborative learning experience through global engineering design projects: a case study. In: Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering, pp. 212–215. Springer, Heidelberg (2008) 6. John-Steiner, V.: Creative Collaboration. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2000) 7. Barron, B.: When smart groups fail. J. learn. Sci. 12, 307–359 (2003) 8. Esparragoza, I.E., Lascano, S.K., Ocampo, J.R.: Assessing interactions among students geographically disperse during multinational design projects. In: ASEE, 121st Annual Conference, Indianapolis, p. 12 (2014)

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9. Esparragoza, I.E., Ocampo, J.R., Rodriguez, J., Lascano, S., Ivashyn, U., Sacchelli, C., Vigano, R., Duque, J.: participation of students in multinational projects – a pre/post comparison of their motivation based on geographic location and gender. In: Proceeding of WEEF (2017) 10. Esparragoza, I.E., Ocampo, J.R., Rodriguez, J., Lascano, S., Ivashyn, U., Sacchelli, C., Vigano, R., Duque, J.: Pre- and post- evaluation of students interest on multinational projects based on class standing and gender. In: Proceeding of LACCEI (2017) 11. https://zoom.us/ 12. https://slack.com/

Engineering Education Through the Eyes of a Young Specialist: Information for Consideration Olga Yurievna Khatsrinova1, Alexander Troitsky2, Julia Khatsrinova1(&), and Weronika Bronskaya1 1

Kazan National Research Technological University, Kazan, Russia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 State University of Management, Moscow, Russia [email protected]

Abstract. The study of the problem of satisfaction with the knowledge gained for the implementation of professional activity is relevant in the development of educational programs during the period of modernization of the content of education. A questionnaire was developed to analyze the views of students. In the responses, it was noted that chemical engineers in their professional activities use more than half of the theoretical and practical knowledge gained during university studies, but feel the need to deepen their knowledge in economics and management, information technology, a foreign language, and chemistry. The responses received will be taken into account by program developers to adjust their content. Keywords: Development of training programs devices”
Specialist
Knowledge


Discipline “processes and

1 Context The main value of the scientific and technical potential of the nation is its engineering and scientific and technical personnel. The personality of a modern highly skilled engineer-designer, designer, technologist is objectively becoming a key figure in social and economic development. Therefore, innovations in education should ensure close interaction of universities with industrial enterprises. The inclusion in the organization of the educational process of representatives of employers is connected not only with proposals on the formation of the necessary competencies of future specialists on the basis of professional standards, but also public accreditation of educational programs. Competences necessary for the engineer of the 21st century have already been named [5]. Every year, educational organizations put on the market a large number of specialists with higher education. At the same time, about 30% of specialists are not working in their specialty. One of the reasons for the current situation is the inconsistency of the educational services market and the requirements of the labor market for © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 924–933, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_90

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the quality of training. The requirements of employers are focused mainly on the compliance of vocational training with the requirements of real professional activity and the enhancement of professional development. Developing educational programs in accordance with the requirements of a particular employer is impractical because Some graduates are employed outside the region of study. Therefore, educational organizations need to constantly study the requirements of employers for specialists and assess the degree of satisfaction with the training of young professionals. According to the interviewed employers, the young specialist should be able to clearly and timely perform professional tasks within the framework of official powers; show initiative in solving professional problems; clearly and timely perform the newly emerging professional tasks. At the same time, employers pointed to the frequent need for additional training of specialists in the workplace, therefore, “readiness for training” is included in the list of necessary qualities of a specialist. To improve the quality of training, it is necessary to include students in the process of real professional activity at the training stage. It is also necessary to involve practitioners and increase interaction with specialists within industrial organizations. Therefore, a well-designed educational process implies that the teaching method, the educational activity itself and the assessment methods should be coordinated so as to provide support to students in mastering the educational program [7]. Thus, the key concept of reconfiguration of work programs of educational disciplines, modules, are the results of education, which are the most important structural element of training. And this requires solving three main tasks: a clear definition of learning outcomes; selection of teaching and learning methods to achieve the stated results; evaluating students’ educational outcomes and checking the extent to which they coincide with what was planned. In this submission, we would like to narrow the scope of the studied problems of the demand for young professionals to some of the provisions that a student needs to get a quality education, and what we, teachers need to do in order for our specialists to be in demand, and engineering education to become better.

2 Purpose or Goal The problem of the quality of higher education is directly related to the training of specialists and the formation of labor markets. The relationship between society and higher education is changing. The market formulates the requirement of competitiveness of specialists, and therefore the quality of their training. The quality of education depends on many factors. The concept of “quality of professional” education is different for universities and for employers. University students are students, employers, the state. For an employer, the quality of education is the hiring of a specialist who is able to efficiently solve professional tasks; for the state, the quality of education is an increase in the training of highly qualified specialists who contribute to the socioeconomic growth of the country; for a student, the quality of education is realized in competitiveness and demand in the labor market, as well as the satisfaction of ideas about professional and personal growth. At this stage of development of the system of vocational education, in our opinion, the least developed is the monitoring of learning

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outcomes, including the verification of acquired competencies for compliance with the requirements of employers. This is precisely the solution to the problem of improving the quality of training graduates and the expediency of the recommended measures to modernize the educational process. Innovative transformations are reflected in the content of educational programs [1]. Analyzing the content of the existing training programs in accordance with educational standards, we would like to answer the question whether the system of teaching the discipline “Processes and Apparatus” for chemical production specialists corresponds to the formation of professional competencies? Processes and devices of chemical production - an integrated engineering and scientific discipline, considering the solution of problems of creating effective technological systems based on the use of modern achievements of science and technology. In response to the above question, we turned to the need to modernize the content of training in the subject, relying not only on the recommendations of employers, but also on the wishes of young professionals already working. This will allow the teacher to make adjustments to the list of issues being studied, as well as to use the necessary learning technologies. The users of the educational program are not only the organizers of the educational process and teachers of the university, but also students. In this regard, it must meet the requirements that allow students to become subjects of the educational process carried out by the university and perform an indicative function for them. One of the solutions is the construction of such a model of the content of the discipline, in which various factors and limitations can be envisaged related to the timeconsuming and professional orientation of the discipline. The basis for determining the content is the system of professional competencies. For the chemical industry, the system of professional competencies is based on the analysis of the requirements of employers, as well as the qualification characteristics described in the professional standards of the industry [3]. On the basis of the system of competencies, it is possible to develop an effective model of the content of training, which is of a dynamic nature, in which it is necessary to provide some parameters that determine the effective system of this system.

3 Approach Understanding the problems of education focuses on interdisciplinary approaches. Design, initially having a technical nature, becomes a tool to increase the competitiveness of specialists. Reut points out that in education, design is aimed at creating a prototype, a prototype of an educational product, a theoretically and practically reasonable definition of a combination of development options, taking into account processes and phenomena [4]. Thus, when creating programs, the focus is primarily on innovative transformations. The design of the educational process is carried out on the basis of the competencebased approach as leading in the system of methodological approaches. Competencebased approach is an approach that focuses on the result of education, and the result is not the sum of the acquired information, but the person’s ability to act in different situations, therefore it is advisable to add the following principles.

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The principle of consistency involves compliance with the objectives, content, methods, forms, means, technological methods and mechanisms for evaluating the results of the educational process. The principle of student-centeredness means the reorientation of the educational process from “input” indicators (terms of training, content) to “output” parameters competencies, while the student acts as a subject of activity along with the teacher. Taking into account employability, the role of academic and professional recognition is increasing, which in turn is intended to have an impact on teaching, content and assessment of results. The principle of taking into account the needs and interests of stakeholders. This principle acts as a sociocultural and organizational and managerial norm, where the sociocultural norm is presented in the form of taking into account the needs and requirements of employers as consumers of educational services, and the organizational and managerial norm acts as a marketing activity aimed at studying the labor market. This principle performs, in essence, a consolidating function in the design and subsequent improvement of the educational process. The principle of reflexivity requires continuous adjustment of the created project of the educational process based on the analysis of the needs and capabilities of the subjects - participants of the process. The principle of optimality is achieved by choosing adequate for the content of technological operations for their development, the choice of methods of managing educational activities, the choice of material and spiritual means of training and education. The principle of multi-factoriality means that when designing an educational process for a discipline, a teacher must take into account all factors known to him that influence this process and identify unknowns. The principle of adaptation of the educational process to the personality of students is expressed in the development of variants of models of mastered activities, foreseeing the variability of ways of mastering these activities. The principle of advance involves the study of pilot plants, new technologies that are not yet used in production, but are at the implementation stage. The product of the design is the project of the future educational process, presented in the form of technology of training. An example of such a technology can serve as a task technology. Professional tasks take place in various types of professional activity and arise in the practical-cognitive interaction of a specialist with a technical object (equipment, technology, production as a whole) or when organizing the work of workers (primary parts of production). To this end, the standard of training bachelors in the direction of “18.03.02 Energy and resource-saving processes in chemical engineering, petrochemistry and biotechnology” describes the activities for which the specialist must be prepared. The field of professional activity of graduates who have mastered the undergraduate program includes the creation, implementation and operation of energy- and resource-saving, environmentally friendly technologies in the production of basic inorganic substances, products of basic and fine organic synthesis, polymeric materials, petroleum products, gas and solid fuel products, microbiological synthesis, drugs and food products, the development of methods for the treatment of industrial and household waste and raw materials.

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Based on the analysis of the identified types of activities, professional tasks are identified, which provide a meaningful description. The selection and systematization of professional tasks should contribute to the reflection in the content of the discipline of the predictive requirements of production to the level of training. Therefore, we in the method of teaching practical classes have focused on the transition from tasks with known algorithms to problem solving, where the student is looking for solutions to their own solutions, based on theoretical knowledge and skills obtained during the lecture course [2]. Currently, the teaching of the discipline is carried out in the form of lectures, seminars, practical and laboratory classes, as well as independent work of students. On practical classes - skills and skills of solving problems are developed, while the student relies on theoretical knowledge and skills obtained during the lecture course and the ability to use the mathematical apparatus. The size of the array of such tasks should be sufficient for the formation of competencies that allow finding engineering solutions for options for organizing processes, choosing the optimal equipment and determining its basic dimensions. Examples of such tasks. 1. A hot concentrated solution coming out of an evaporator with a temperature of 106 °C is used to warm up to 500 °C a cold dilute solution fed to a residue with a temperature of 150 °C. The concentrated solution is cooled to 600 °C. Determine the average temperature difference for direct-flow and counter-current circuits. 2. In the heat exchange of two turbulent flows (Re > 10,000) in the first flow ɑ1 = 230 W/m2K, and in the second flow ɑ2 = 400 W/m2K. How many times will the heat transfer coefficient increase if the speed of the first flow increases by 2 times, and the speed of the second - 3 times (with other conditions remaining unchanged)? 3. Determine the surface of the countercurrent heat exchanger in which a hot liquid (absorption oil) in an amount of 3 tons/h is cooled from 100 to 250 C with cold liquid heated from 20 to 400 C. It is known that the heat transfer coefficient changes as follows with the temperature of the oil: To improve the quality of training, we conducted a survey of university graduates working in chemical production in line positions throughout the year. All of them studied the discipline “Processes and devices.” Answers to the questions posed should guide the programmers in this discipline to meet not only the requirements of employers, but also take into account the views of students who determine the effectiveness of the training received.

4 Results The main requirement for the results of education is their assessment, which requires some tools and methods of assessment, allowing to determine the degree of achievement of established educational results by students. According to federal state standards, two methods of assessment can be distinguished: – method of direct assessment (written exams, design works, portfolios, certification, tests and others); – method of indirect assessment (survey of employers, comparison with other universities, survey of graduates and other interested parties, analysis of curricula, dropout rates and student employment, etc.).

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The chemical, petrochemical, and polymer industries in Russia are among the most efficient. They rightfully compete in the international market. As a result, there is a high need for chemical engineers. In order to identify delayed results of training, we selected a survey in this study. The questions were aimed at identifying the use of certain knowledge in professional activities and what knowledge is lacking in work. The survey was conducted - an attempt to assess the level of training of engineering graduates who are already engaged in their professional activities. Questions and answers are presented in Table 1. Table 1. 1. Having completed the training, do you think that the theoretical information that you received as part of KNRTU courses is useful and sufficient for career development? Answer Result% Useful and sufficient 21 Useful and ample 14 It lacks important elements, but I still benefit from it 63 Not enough, I do not use it, does not add anything to my knowledge of high school 2 Comments on 1 question: only 2% of the polled experts answered that the theoretical information is useless. It can be said that 98% rated positively the quality of those who received theoretical knowledge Question 2: Are laboratory works useful in the course of KNRTU courses? Answer Result% Yes, I learned a lot as part of laboratory work 26 I did not recognize it in the laboratory, but it could have been studied 51 Not enough laboratory experience 23 Comments on question 2: the answers show that only half of the respondents appreciate the content of laboratory work. The rest are not satisfied with the results of their activities Question 3: As a chemical engineer, what did you need to pay special attention to as part of training at KNRTU, what would be most useful in your work (in what area do you think that you lack knowledge)? Answer Result% Quality systems 30 Occupational safety, employee health, environment and human safety 19 ICT 15 Foreign language 15 Regulations (standards) 13 More chemistry knowledge 8 Comments on the 3rd question: the answers show the need for a deeper formation of competences in these activities, and, consequently, a deeper study of these disciplines and their presentation in the training program (continued)

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Question 4: How long after you started working in the specialty did you start to feel confident? Answer Result% Right away 25 6 months later 30 7 ± 12 months later 20 More than 12 months 25 Comments on the 4th question: from the point of view of self-confidence, all the answers are distributed approximately equally, which means that this characteristic is personal rather than the quality of education Question 5: Do you use your university notes in your work? Answer Result% Yes 15 Sometimes 48 No 37 Comments on the 5th question: almost half of the graduates apply for the actualization of their knowledge at the very beginning of their professional activities, which indicates their importance, relevance and relevance

Question 6: In the process of learning, did you gain enough knowledge and skills? Comments on the 6th question: in accordance with this, students study fundamental knowledge at a sufficient level. Laboratory practice is closer to the insufficient level, personal and written skills of presentations at the border between the insufficient and the close to the sufficient. The most inadequate knowledge of laws and regulations. 120 100 80

1,05 5,26 43,2

60 40 20 0

26,3

12,6 18,9 34,7

48,4 50,5

26,3

32

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46,3 30,5 23,2

23,2 2,11 6,32 8,42 15,8

1,1 5,3 60

41

69

46,3 49,5 27,4 18,9

19 32,6 26 16,8 24,2 4,2 9,47 6,32 7,4 0

More than enough (%)

Enough (%)

% Not very enough (%)

Not enough (%)

Fig. 1. Answers to question 6.

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Question 7: What did you get from doing internship at the university? Answer Result% Nothing 4,5 I gained more knowledge about the chemical industry 20,0 She helped me get a job 7 I had the opportunity to learn about different industries 25,5 My expectations have become more realistic 12 I learned to work with different people 15 I learned more about what interests me 16 Comments on the 7th question: currently, most universities have in their training programs work experience. Of course, some universities offer internships, scientific work, which are conducted in university laboratories instead of industrial enterprises. The survey results show that students form professional competences in production, study production, look for the direction of professional activity and the opportunity to realize their readiness. In the present conditions of the formation of new educational training programs, work experience must necessarily be Question 8: What knowledge and skills did you form during the course of your thesis (project)? Answer Result% Nothing 0.5 I made the design calculations 16.0 I learned to collect information 24.0 I learned a lot on the topic of research 21.0 I learned to write in scientific language and correctly describe technical issues 18.5 I gained experience and continued research project 20 Comments on the 8th question: diploma projects lead to the synthesis of all the knowledge gained and the development of professional competencies Question 9: What percentage of the knowledge gained from your education do you use? Answer Result% 100% 1 75 ± 99% 10 50 ± 74% 38 25 ± 49% 36 Less than 25% 15 Comments on the 9th question: We are aware of the time of knowledge obsolescence and the answers to the question once again show that not all the subject knowledge obtained in the learning process is used in professional activities

Having determined the average statistical value of the results obtained, it was obtained that approximately 50% of the knowledge gained was actually used. If we assume that university graduates work in the most diverse areas of professional activity, it can be argued that they use 50% of the knowledge gained at the university. This is a very good result (Fig. 1).

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Question 10. Evaluate the studied disciplines This is probably the most important question of our questionnaire, when graduates have the opportunity to express their opinion about the importance of the discipline “Processes and apparatuses of chemical production.” The survey involved 80 people working in engineering positions in the chemical and petrochemical industries. As a result, the following conclusions were made that in their professional activities they often use knowledge and skills obtained in the study of the discipline. The consistency of the results shows that the questions were taken seriously.

5 Conclusions The system of higher education in Russia is entering the stage of technological and technical renewal. The key factors for the successful development of universities will be the flexibility and variability of training programs, the speed of response to changes, the overcoming of natural inertia. Strategies for further development of universities are complicated by the weakness of feedback that is necessary to increase the efficiency and accessibility of education, the lack of innovations in the system of educational technologies and the content of training, and the lack of a forecasting system. The qualitative solution of the problem implies the achievement of a scientifically grounded compromise between customer requirements and the capabilities of the developer of the training program. The survey is an attempt to assess the level of training of engineering graduates who are already engaged in their professional activities. The consistency of the results shows that the questions were taken and evaluated seriously. The main general conclusions that can be drawn from these questionnaires are as follows: experts in their professional activities use more than half of the theoretical and practical knowledge given to them during their studies at the university. The content of the discipline “Processes and apparatuses of chemical technologies” they are satisfied, but spoke out on increasing the list of laboratory studies aimed at solving professional problems. Actual ways of solving these issues from the point of view of students’ work lie in the development of independent practice and training in the framework of project activities, participation in laboratories and experimental design bureaus, engineering competitions, stimulating them to independent learning through the formation of various platforms [6]. But also in their professional life, specialists feel the need to deepen their knowledge in the field of economics and management, information technology, a foreign language, and chemical disciplines. Naturally, there is no recipe or one solution. When developing new training programs, each university should take into account not only the specific needs of industry, but also the proposals of former students, so that students can quickly find a place for themselves in the professional sphere.

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References 1. Ivanov, V.G., Khatsrinova, O.Yu., Barabanova, S.V.: Innovations and classical approaches in engineering education: a comparative analysis of educational models. Kazan Sci. 3, 10–15 (2015) 2. Ignashina, T.V., Bronskaya, W.V., Abdulkashapova, F.A.: Formation of professional value orientations of students of a technical university in the process of teaching specialized disciplines. Sustain. Dev. Manag. 4(17), 103–107 (2018) 3. Koryagin, S.I., Polupan, K.L.: Innovative approaches to the development of educational programs of engineering profile. Eng. Educ. 17, 7–14 (2015) 4. Reut, V.G.: Professional competences and educational needs of pedagogical personnel in the conditions of work with heterogeneous groups of students. Continuing Educ. 4(10), 32–39 (2014) 5. Building a Knowledge-Based Society: New Higher School Challenges: A World Bank Report. http://docplayer.ru/343019-Formirovanie-obshchestva-osnovannogo-na-znaniyahnovye-zadachi-vysshey-shkoly.html. Accessed 5 Jan 2019 6. Khatsrinova, O.Yu., Ivanov, V.G.: Tasks of practical training in an innovative university. Bull. Kazan Technol. Univ. 3, 301–303 (2006) 7. Khatsrinova, O.Yu.: The development of methodological competence as a priority area of professional development for a university teacher. Law Educ. 9, 20–28 (2014)

Learning Modules for Visual-Based Position Tracking and Path Controlling of Autonomous Robots Using Pure Pursuit Supod Kaewkorn(&) King Mongkut’s University of North Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand [email protected]

Abstract. In the field of automatic control system, autonomous movement and its applications, such as intelligent vehicles and auto-steering tractors, are widely studied. This article presents two learning modules to help students better understand visual-based position tracking and path controlling of autonomous robots. Firstly, in the experimental design module, students will receive handson training from the construction of hardware and learn how to apply various theories in visual-based control system and autonomous path controlling. The learning points in the experimental module includes camera and lighting installation, image processing using Raspberry Pi3 B+ board, RF data transmission, PID speed control and PWM position control, determination of robot’s position and heading direction, introductory Python coding, and Pure Pursuit algorithm. Secondly, the simulation module aims to aid the students to see how changing a certain running parameter of a robot affects its running behavior on the desired path. Furthermore, this module provides an introductory course on Python 2D simulation and the basic math model use to derive and obtain the simulation program. Keywords: Pure Pursuit
Image processing
Position tracking
Autonomous path controlling
2D simulation

1 Introduction Nowadays, university-level courses in the field of automatic control system have been almost entirely based on theoretical aspect with minimal hands-on training. Due to numerous automatic control processes, it is difficult for students to fully understand all theories and being able to apply the knowledge without firsthand implementation experience. Therefore, automation laboratories mimicking real-world applications with easy-to-understand methods and tools are highly essential in any automatic control system course. Position tracking sensors used in autonomous navigation are categorized and chosen based on the nature of the intended application. For example, for outdoor applications, satellite-based sensors, such as real-time kinematic (RTK) [1] and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) [2], are normally utilized. However, in indoor areas where the satellite signals are restricted, visual-based are most preferred due to its practicality and ease of maintenance [3]. Path controlling techniques used for autonomous ground © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 934–945, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_91

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vehicles usually processes the sensor data using nonlinear control theories such as Model Predictive Control [4], rule-based Fuzzy-Logic Control [5], and geometric-based Pure Pursuit algorithm [6]. Due to the simplicity in its math model and wide variety of practical applications such as Semi-Autonomous Tractor [7], Pure Pursuit algorithm is chosen as the main algorithm for teaching path controlling of Ackermann steering vehicles [8] in this paper. To make the course more appealing and easier for students to see the whole picture, here, this paper presents both hands-on and simulation laboratories for visual-based position tracking and path controlling of autonomous robots using pure pursuit algorithm.

2 Experimental Design Laboratory In the experimental learning module, the control system for an autonomous path tracking robot using visual-based processing and Pure Pursuit algorithm is separated into two main parts: visual-based position tracking and path controlling. 2.1

Visual-Based Position Tracking

2.1.1 Robot The robot is built by imitating a four-wheel vehicle with rear-wheel drive and front wheel steering as depicted in Fig. 1(a). The two rear driving wheels are controlled by 12-volt DC motors which are coupled with an encoder to measure its revolutions per minute (RPM). The robot’s controller is comprised of a DC motor driver (L298N), a microcontroller (Arduino Uno R3 Board), and a radio frequency (RF) transceiver (433 MHz wireless RF serial UART module CC1101 transceiver) as seen in Fig. 1(b). The RPM of driving DC motors measured by the encoders can be translated into the speed of the robot. After receiving real-time speed of the robot from the encoders, the Arduino microcontroller can then adjust the speed via PID-based pulse-width modulation (PWM) through the DC motor driver. The steering angle of the two front wheels is adjusted by a RC servo motor using Pure Pursuit algorithm after the Arduino microcontroller receives the current position and heading direction from the camera component which will be explained in Sect. 2.1.2.

Encoder

DC Motor RC Servo Motor

(a)

DC Motor Drive

Microcontroller

RF

(b)

Fig. 1. (a) Hardware illustration of the four-wheel robot’s chassis with rear-wheel drive driven by two DC motors and front-wheel steering controlled by a RC servo Motor. (b) DC motor driver and Arduino board used for direction and speed control and RF transceiver used for receiving its current location and heading direction

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2.1.2 Camera The current position and heading direction of the robot are acquired by capturing and processing its real-time image via a Raspberry Pi camera with a Raspberry Pi3 B+ board as shown in Fig. 2(a). The camera specifications are as follows: • 5 MP Camera Module Flex Cable Webcam Video 1,080/720p1 with 2,592  1,944 resolution • Angle of view (AOV) at 54°  41° • 90-fps VGA video with sampling time of 18 ms A RF transceiver with identical specification to the one on the robot is coupled with the camera to transmit the position and heading direction data to the robot. The camera’s RF transceiver is set to FU4 Idle mode which uses 22 mA with a baud rate of 19,200 bps yielding 2-ms transmission delay. To ensure a stable illumination, four 12 V LED light bulbs shown in Fig. 2(b) are installed along with the camera. Camera

RF

12 V LED

Raspberry Pi3

(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. (a) a Raspberry Pi camera installed on a Raspberry Pi3 B+ board with a RF transceiver (b) a 12 V LED light source

The camera and four light sources are installed at two meters above floor as shown from the side view in Fig. 3(a). The light sources’ position relative to the camera is RF

Light

Light

Light

Light RF

Light

1m.

2m.

Camera Light

Robot Dark floor 1m.

(a)

1m. (b)

Fig. 3. Installation of a camera and four light sources for visual locating of a robot on the darkcolored floor: (a) side view (b) top view

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shown from the top view in Fig. 3(b). The intensity of the light sources is adjusted to provide an illumination of 100–150 lx at the robot via tuning its voltage. Furthermore, the image contrast is maximized by using a dark-colored floor, and the glaring reflection is minimized by adjusting the LED light sources’ angle. 2.1.3 Position-Tracking Algorithm To track the position of the robot, first, one must define the camera’s field of view (FOV) on the floor. According to Fig. 4, the FOV depends on the AOV of the camera and the height (h) which the camera is installed. FOV can be calculated using Eq. (1) as follows:
 AOV FOV ¼ 2:d:tan 2

ð1Þ

AOV

h

FOV

Fig. 4. The relationship between AOV of the camera and FOV of the camera on the floor

The camera with the AOV of 54° in x direction and 41° in y direction is set up is set at two meters above the floor (Fig. 3(a)); therefore, the total FOV of the camera is a 2.00 m  1.33 m rectangular area. Since the robot must stay inside the FOV at all time, the effective controlled area is chosen to be a 1 m  1 m square area at the center of the total FOV. To be able to identify the position and heading direction, two white paper circles of different sizes are adhered on the top of the robot’s body as illustrated in Fig. 5. The large circle with the diameter of 8 cm is placed above and with its center at the middle of the rear axle, while the small circle with the diameter of 4 cm is placed 10 cm apart from the large circle directly to middle of the front axle. The robot’s position is referred to the large rear circle only, and the heading direction is acquired by drawing a vector from the center of the large rear circle to the center of the small front circle. The process of finding x–y position and heading direction of the robot in Python language based on SimpleCV library [9–11] is summarized as shown in Fig. 6. First, the image of the robot is captured and converted into a black/white image. The noise is filtered out using ‘dilate’ command. To find the white circles, blob detection algorithm is carried out using ‘findBlobs’ command which combines a group of adjacent pixels into a single area. The center of each circle is defined by the centroid of the circle’s area. Any visual error caused by the camera distortion is neglected.

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Rear

X

Heading direction

8 cm.

4 cm.

Front

10 cm.

Top View

Fig. 5. Two white paper circles of two different sizes placed on top of the robot’s body used to identify the robot’s position and heading direction

Capture

Back&White

Filter

Find blob

Cal X,Y& Heading

Fig. 6. The process of finding position and direction of robot by using image processing

An example of the Python code for acquiring the robot’s x–y position in SimpleCV library is depicted as follows: img = cam.getImage() #Capture image img = img.binarize(blocksize=5, p=10).dilate(2) #Filter blobs = img.findBlobs( threshval = -1, minsize=2, maxsize=200, threshblocksize=5, threshconstant=5, appx_level=3) #Find blob if blobs: blobs.sortArea() #sort blob by area px = int(blobs[-1].centroid()[0]) #Get X py = int(blobs[-1].centroid()[1]) #Get Y

The centers of both circles is then used to compute the vector of the heading direction of the robot by using Eq. (2), where the center of the small circle in the front is defined as ðx1 ; y1 Þ and the center of the large circle in the rear is defined as ðx2 ; y2 Þ. Heading ¼ atan2ððy2  y1 Þ; ðx2  x1 ÞÞ

ð2Þ

In the Eq. (2), the ‘atan2’ function is applied instead of ‘atan’ function because of its limitation in computable angle range of only two quadrants from  p2 to p2. On the other hand, the ‘atan2’ function can recognize solutions in all quadrants from p to p, allowing the true heading direction of the robot to be accurately computed.

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Path Controlling Using Pure Pursuit

To guide the robot to run with the least number of turnings on the desired path using Pure Pursuit, both the robot’s speed and steering angle must be precisely controlled in real time. Three critical step steps as demonstrated in Fig. 7 are carried out in order to generate an optimal steering angle for the robot.

Robotís Position on Path

Goal point

Steering Angle

Fig. 7. Computational process of calculating optimal steering angle for the robot to run with the least number of turnings using Pure Pursuit algorithm

First, the projected position of the robot on the desired path must be determined. The desired path can be thought of as a continuous array of x–y coordinates (xi, yi); hence, the distance between the robot (xr, yr) to any given point on the desired path can expressed in Eq. (3) as follows: di ¼

qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð xr  xi Þ 2 þ ð yr  yi Þ 2

ð3Þ

By finding the coordinate (xi, yi) that yields the minimum value of di, the projected position, designated as (xp, yp), of the robot on the desired path is obtained (Fig. 8(a)). Second, the goal point on the desired path is obtained based on a chosen look-ahead distance (D) which is how far ahead along the desired path and direction the robot should look from its current projected position (xp, yp) (Fig. 8(b)).

xr,yr dm

D

xr,yr

Goal

dm

in

xi ,y

i

xp , yp

di

xp ,

yp

in

(a)

(b)

Fig. 8. (a) The shortest distance (dmin) from the robot’s position defined as the center of the large rear circle (xr, yr) to the coordinates (xp, yp) on the desired path (dotted vector) (b) Finding the goal point on the desired path (dotted vector) based on a chosen look-ahead distance (D)

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Lastly, according to Pure Pursuit algorithm [6], the steering angle (a), which generates a turning radius (R) toward the goal point as depicted in Fig. 9, can be computed using Eq. (4), as follows: a ¼ tan1


 2Lsinh :; D

ð4Þ

where L is the wheelbase of the robot, which is the perpendicular distance between the center of the front axle to the center of the rear axle, h is the angle between the robot’s heading direction and the chosen look-ahead direction, and D is the look-ahead distance. The computed steering angle is then transmitted by the microcontroller in PWM command to the RC servo motor which controls the steering of the front wheels.

Goal

α Front D

R

θ

θ

R

L

dmin Desired Path

α = Steering Angle L = Wheelbase D = Look-ahead Distance R = Turning Radius dmin = Shortest Distance

Rear

Fig. 9. Illustration of the relationship between the steering angle (a) and the chosen look-ahead distance (D)

After the optimal steering angle is obtained, the speed of the robot is set to be a constant value by the microcontroller using PID control. An example of PID control command [12] for setting and maintaining a constant speed is shown below: previous_error = 0 integral = 0 loop: error = setpoint - measured_value integral = integral + error * dt derivative = (error - previous_error) / dt output = Kp * error + Ki * integral + Kd * derivative previous_error = error wait(dt) goto loop

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Example of Experimental Laboratory and Results

Here, an example of an actual experimental laboratory which aims to help students understand the effect of the look-ahead distance on the robot’s running behavior is explained. Three look-ahead distances, 10 cm, 20 cm, and 30 cm, are chosen for the robot to run on a straight line in x direction and y direction and on a 90° turn path, with a constant speed of 0.5 m/s. Two attributes of the robot’s running behavior are studied, which are defined as follows: • Path-crossing frequency (PCF) is the number of times the robot crosses the desired path per unit traveled distance on the desired path, with the assigned unit of times/cm. In the other words, PCF implies the number of times the robot changing its steering direction with respect to the desired path, measuring its running smoothness. • Maximum path deviation (MPD) is the maximum absolute distance that the robot deviates from the desired path.

100

Actual traveled paths of a robot running on a straight line in x direction and y direction with different look-ahead distances are displayed in Fig. 10. PCF and MPD, summarized in 0suggest that there is a small difference in the robot’s running behaviors in x direction and y direction. The students will learn that this is caused by image distortion due to different AOV in x direction and y direction of the camera, as stated in Sect. 2.1. Students will also learn that, with longer look-ahead distance, PCF decreases while MPD increases, which suggests that the farther the robot looks ahead along the desired path, a smoother run with a larger deviation is expected (Table 1).

Deviation from Desired Path(cm)

(10)

(20)

(30)

(30)

+ -

+2.8

-5.3 (20) -5.2

+ -

Y Distance (cm)

+

+3.1

-3.8

+2.9

(10)

X Distance (cm)

100

-

+

-

+

-

Deviation from Desired Path(cm)

(a)

+

(b)

Fig. 10. Robot’s actual traveled paths (red) running on a straight line (black) with a look-ahead distance of 10 cm, 20 cm, and 30 cm in (a) x direction and (b) y direction

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Look-ahead distance (cm)

PCF (times/cm) X Y 0.12 0.14 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.04

10 20 30

MPD (cm) X 2.9 3.1 5.3

Y 2.8 3.8 5.2

In the case of 90° turn path, the actual traveled paths of the robot with look-ahead distance of 10 cm and 30 cm are shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b), respectively. The turning characteristics of the robot, namely turning radius and overshoot MPD at the turning corner, are summarized in 0Students will learn that the turning radius is positively correlated with the chosen look-ahead distance, yielding a larger overshoot MPD of the robot at the turning corner (Table 2).

+4.3

+7.2

+ X = 100 cm R=4.5

-

+ -

X = 100 cm

R=9.1

Y

(a)

(b)

Fig. 11. Robot’s actual traveled paths (red) on a 90° turn path (black) with a look-ahead distance of (a) 10 cm (b) 30 cm

Table 2. Turning radius and the overshoot MPD at the 90° corner Look-ahead distance (cm) Turning radius (cm) Overshoot MPD at 90° corner (cm) 10 4.50 4.30 30 9.10 7.20

3 Simulation Laboratory To help students better understand influence of the parameter dynamics to the robot’s running characteristics on the assigned path, simulation of the robot’s movement is derived and performed in accordance with the Ackermann kinetics model [13, 14], as seen in Fig. 12.

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v α

L

y x,y

θ

x

φ

R

Fig. 12. Illustration of Ackermann kinetics model for a four-wheel vehicle with rear-wheel driving and front-wheel steering [13, 14]

If the robot’s speed is set to be a constant value (v), the robot’s speed along the x axis (_x) and the y axis (_y) can be calculated as shown in Eqs. (5a) and (5b), respectively. The steering angle (a), determined by the chosen look-ahead distance (D) as _ as shown in stated in Eq. (4), is used to calculate the robot’s angular velocity (h) Eq. (5c), where L is the wheelbase. p  h 2 p  y_ ¼ v sinð;Þ ¼ v sin  h 2
 v v 2Lsinh 2vsinh h_ ¼ tanðaÞ ¼ ¼ L L D D x_ ¼ v cosð;Þ ¼ v cos

ð5aÞ ð5bÞ ð5cÞ

The robot’s simulation is written in Python language, and the graphic results are generated using Tkinter library. Chronological screenshots of a simulation of the robot’s movement with the speed of 0.5 m/s and the look-ahead distance of 30 cm are illustrated in Fig. 13. From this simulation program, students can study the influence of

Fig. 13. Python simulation of the robot’s movement (yellow box) along the edge of a 1 m  1 m square (black solid line) in a counterclockwise direction with its current steering radius displayed as a green circle

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altering the look-ahead distance and the speed of the robot on its running behaviors in terms of PCF and MPD before the actual experimental laboratory.

4 Conclusion Here, learning modules for an automatic control system course using visual-based position tracking and path controlling for autonomous robots can be divided into two parts: experimental design laboratory and simulation laboratory. The experimental design laboratory aims to help students better understand: • • • • • •

Camera and lighting installation Determination of robot’s position and heading direction Utilization of Raspberry Pi board Introductory coding in Python based on SimpleCV library Data transmission using RF signal Construction of robot hardware such as motors, actuators, sensors, and microcontrollers • Pure Pursuit theory • PID speed control and PWM RC servo control The simulation laboratory aims to simplify:

• Ackermann’s kinetics math model • Python 2D simulation • Parameter dynamic to the robot’s movement on the desired path After these learning modules, students are expected to be able to design the different visual-based autonomous robot control systems such as agricultural robots, robot tanks, Omni wheel system, and intelligent vehicle technologies. Acknowledgment. This project has been supported and funded by King Mongkut University of Technology (KMUTNB). Special gratitude towards all dedicated students and fellow researchers at College of Industrial Technology (CIT) at KMUTNB for hardware installation, software implementation, and data acquisition.

References 1. Meguro, J.I., Hashizume, T., Takiguchi, J.I., Kurosaki, R.: Development of an autonomous mobile surveillance system using a network-based RTK-GPS. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 3096–3101. IEEE, April 2005 2. Jones, K.R., McClure, J.A., Roberge, A.C., Feller, W.J., Whitehead, M.L. (Inventors), AgJunction L.L.C. (Assignee): GNSS guidance and machine control. United States patent US 8,639,416, 28 January 2014 3. Ruangpayoongsak, N.: Mobile robot positioning by using low-cost visual tracking system. In: MATEC Web of Conferences, vol. 95, p. 08006. EDP Sciences (2017)

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4. Lenain, R., Thuilot, B., Cariou, C., Martinet, P.: Model predictive control for vehicle guidance in presence of sliding: application to farm vehicles path tracking. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 885–890. IEEE, April 2005 5. Antonelli, G., Chiaverini, S., Fusco, G.: A fuzzy-logic-based approach for mobile robot path tracking. IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Syst. 15(2), 211–221 (2007) 6. Samuel, M., Hussein, M., Mohamad, M.B.: A review of some Pure-Pursuit based path tracking techniques for control of autonomous vehicle. Int. J. Comput. Appl. 135(1), 35–38 (2016) 7. Stentz, A., Dima, C., Wellington, C., Herman, H., Stager, D.: A system for semi-autonomous tractor operations. Auton. Rob. 13(1), 87–104 (2002) 8. Weinstein, A.J., Moore, K.L.: Pose estimation of Ackermann steering vehicles for outdoors autonomous navigation. In: 2010 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology, pp. 579–584. IEEE, March 2010 9. Demaagd, K.: Practical Computer Vision with SimpleCV. O’Reilly Media, Sebastopol (2012) 10. Drawing on Images in SimpleCV, 12 January 2019. http://tutorial.simplecv.org/en/latest/ examples/display.html?highlight=findblobs 11. SimpleCV v1.0.0 documentation, 12 January 2019. http://simplecv.sourceforge.net/doc/api. html 12. PID controller, 12 January 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller 13. Mitchell, W.C., Staniforth, A., Scott, I.: Analysis of Ackermann steering geometry (No. 2006-01-3638). SAE Technical Paper (2006) 14. Snider, J.M.: Automatic steering methods for autonomous automobile path tracking. Robotics Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, Technical report. CMU-RITR-09-08 (2009)

‘Learning by Competing’ Experience from Smart India Hackathon 2019 Shashikant Annarao Halkude(&) and Dipali Dilip Awasekar Walchand Institute of Technology, Solapur, Maharashtra, India [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. In this paper, we describe the experience at Smart India Hackathon 2019, a nationwide initiative to provide students a platform to solve some of pressing problems we face in our daily lives, and thus inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mindset of problem solving. The Team ‘AndroDigi’ was shortlisted for Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon 2019 which was held on 2nd and 3rd March 2019. The team built a solution for Problem Statement “App based valuation and report generation” under Aich Appraisers Auctioneers Organization. Nodal Centre for this team was Chandigarh Groups of Colleges, Landran Mohali. In this study, we analyzed student’s perceptions and experience in a hackathon where they were to design a concept for an application for automation for asset valuation report generation. A team of 6 students (3 girls & 3 boys) was selected form 380 teams all over India. By collecting data through questionnaires and interviewing the participants, we applied descriptive statistics rather than exploring into inferential statistics to analyze the data due to the limited number of students. In the end, the results show that the use of hackathon helped in achieving the learning goals and inculcating problem solving mindset. The students expressed their satisfaction in the fact that it provided them with motivation to learn through practice. Also, students agreed that the event helped them to think collaboratively for refined ideas. The overwhelming satisfaction expressed by the students goes to confirm that hackathon brings out the best creative skills from people through problem-solving. Keywords: Smart India Hackathon
Computer Science and Engineering Programming
Competitive learning
Open Innovation Model




1 Introduction Computer programming is a part and parcel of the computer science and engineering education. The typical goals of an introductory computer programming course for major and non-major are to get students learn programming aspects of: (i) syntax and semantics of programming concepts (ii) develop logic for programs (iii) implement programs individually and build analytical thinking skill. Students have difficulty in acquiring these skills, as evidenced by their low success in university exams [2]. Nevertheless, the pedagogical approaches used in teaching the programming courses may be one of the contributing factors towards the poor performance of students. Also understanding of this course in Computer Science and Engineering disciplines is crucial. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 946–956, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_92

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Thus, one of the most pressing issues in computer science education has been to enhance student’s employability skills to make them industry ready by focusing on their programming abilities as stated in [5]. There is a growing recognition that not one intervention alone but a network of activities is needed for broader success that reaches far beyond the computer science classrooms. Many efforts on the college level have focused on purposeful recruitment by reaching out to students, providing stronger mentoring opportunities. While most of the efforts have focused on formal CS classes, informal learning opportunities such as small and large-scale coding competitions play a significant role in broadening participation in computing. These coding competitions with names like Coding Wars, CodeChef and TopCoder, Hacker Earth to name but a few, have increasingly become popular events to highlight students coding accomplishments. Many of these efforts have resulted not only in enhancing students hard and soft skills but also has resulted in broadening students perceptions around competitive computing participation and potential. 1.1

Brief History of Smart India Hackathon

In India Innovation and entrepreneurship are at the peak. One activity that has received little attention since 2017 so far in India is the increasing popularity of Smart India Hackathon. In this paper, we describe the design and learning’s from partaking in Smart India Hackathon 2019 (software edition). This hackathon was a part of the nationwide initiative aimed at proving platform for our technology students to offer innovative solutions for pressing problems facing India. We also report students perceptions and experience for problem solving through a case study ‘AndroDigi’ a functional prototype to pitch to investors for a prize, working on it for 36 h at the grand finale of SIH 2019, aimed at inculcating a culture of product innovation and development. In order to make development a comprehensive mass movement and innovate on all fronts, ‘Smart India Hackathon’ a pan India 36 h nonstop digital programming competition was first organized in 2017 to offer digital yet sustainable innovative solutions to solve real time challenges faced by the nation. It was able to reach 3 Lakh + technical students with 1150+ No. of Teams at the finale and 135 No. of Winners across 26 nodal centres. Smart India Hackathon 2017 saw problem statements coming from 29 union ministries of India. Out of the top ideas from this edition, 20 projects were mentored and creatively developed. They are now ready for handover to the concerned ministries and deployment. As stated [6] the outcome and success of the first edition of Smart India Hackathon is represented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Outcome and success of Smart India Hackathon 2017 (First edition)

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Further to promote digital literacy and to solve real time challenges faced by the nation through a comprehensive mass movement, the Second edition of SIH 2018 was organized by MHRD, AICTE, i4C and Persistent System. The initiative was a huge success with a reach of 5 Lakh + students. Smart India Hackathon 2018 involved 27 union ministries and 17 state governments and for the first time introduced a special Hardware edition. The ministries are now in the process of short listing some of the best ideas from the 200+ winning teams (under both software and hardware editions) and the process of mentoring and developing full-fledged solutions will soon be kick started. The first two edition SIH2017 and SIH2018 proved to be extremely successful in promoting innovation, out-of-the-box thinking in young minds, especially engineering students from across India. The Outcome as in [6] and success of the second edition of Smart India Hackathon is represented in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. Outcome and success of Smart India Hackathon 2017 (First edition)

Following the success of SIH2017 and SIH2018, the third edition of World’s Biggest Open Innovation Model - Smart India Hackathon 2019 was launched on 29 AUG 2018. MHRD, AICTE, Persistent Systems and i4c have joined hands to make a hat trick to organize their highly popular and innovative Smart India Hackathon initiative (SIH). Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2019 - World’s biggest Software and Hardware Hackathon with a unique Open Innovation Model for identifying new and disruptive technology innovations to solve the challenges faced in our country. In the new edition of SIH-2019 over 1 Lakh+ students from around 3000 institutions had an opportunity to work on challenges faced within the Public Sector Organizations, Union Ministries and for the 1st time, it will also include problem statements from industry as well as NGOs. This year SIH 2019 had two sub-editions - software edition (a 36-h software product development competition) and hardware edition (a five-day-long hardware product development competition). Some benefits to join SIH are as follows: Opportunity to brand your organization nationally, Recognition and visibility for your organization across all technical institutions in India, Young techies from all over the country offer out-of-the-box solutions to various problems. The primary objective of SIH2019 is to harness the creative energy and ability to our technology students across all technology institutions (more than 50 lakh students from 6000+ institutions) to think out-of-the-box and offer innovative solutions for the development of our nation.

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The [1] hackathon phenomenon has emerged as an effective approach to encouraging innovation with digital technologies in a large range of different spaces. A hackathon described as “marathon coding competitions”, is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software/hardware development collaborate intensively over a short period of time on software projects. It last between 8 to 48 h in which participants are challenged to generate a technological innovation in the form of a functioning software or hardware prototype. The best idea, selected by a jury, is rewarded with a prize. This could have the form of a monetary or non-monetary (e.g.: access to online or offline courses, incubation or acceleration programs, technological gadgets) reward. Hackathons present both social and professional opportunities to young college students. These hackathons are encouraging of experimentation and creativity, and can be challenge orientated. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In the following section two we briefly describe the literature review mentioning the origins of hackathon. Followed by research question in section three. In Sect. 4 we describe the Structure of SIH 2019 and further in section five we state out case study. Finally, in Sect. 6 we conclude with our insights into the value and potential of hacakthons.

2 Literature Review Hackathons can serve a variety of purposes apart from the one of the generation of an innovation but few literatures have been written on these events. Of the literature written, the greatest part is non-academic and consists of online articles by relevant magazines and blogs. 2.1

Origin of Hackathon

Hackathon as a term was coined in the end of 1990s, when it was used to describe an event combining idea generation and programming to create new solutions for existing challenges in a limited timeframe. It is so strongly originated in the IT community, where multidisciplinary teams have collaborated intensively to create something new. As stated in [1, 2] The word hackathon is a combination of two words, “hack” and “marathon”, of which “hack” refers to programming and “marathon” to the limited timeframe of the event [4]. The terms indicate the concentrated and focused effort – like in a marathon – of finding technological solution that involve software or hardware development – hack. Hackathons are events where people gather to think and generate technological innovations. Literature reveals that the few academic papers have been written on the hackathon phenomenon. The literature reports the finding for majority of academic papers is limited to the description of one or more hackathons. There is no account of a specific Hackathon and its effectiveness in inculcating a culture of product innovation and a mind-set of problem solving specifically conducted for on participating teams. Hence we tried to address this gap by motivating third year students of Walchand Institute of Technology, Solapur Maharashtra (India) to participate in SIH19 presenting the effectiveness.

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Also no extensive research has been done to investigate their relevance and potential in changing the perceptions and addressing computer science engineering student’s employability skills. This study attempts to contribute by addressing some of these research gaps by following an exploratory case study: ‘AndroDigi’ approach conducted over a period of 25 weeks.

3 Research Questions Starting from the 2000’s hackathons have begun to be increasingly seen by tech and non-tech companies and as a way to quickly develop new software technology and to prototype and test digital solutions in few days or hours. Attempting to address the hackathon phenomenon from an academic perspective because not only it would enrich the theoretical background of the participating students, but also it would help institute/colleges to direct the participating teams that is most suited to their structure and needs, the research questions investigated in this study are as follows: 1. Did participation in Smart India Hackathon 2019 (SIH 2019) inculcate a culture of product innovation and a mind-set of problem solving among the team members? 2. Is there a statistically significant difference in attitudes toward team learning/ building between SIH 2019 team members? 3. What are the critical contributing success factors for Smart India Hackathon 2019 considered from a perspective of an institute pursuing for inbound open innovation?

4 SIH 2019 Structure SIH follows a structure: team selection, creative problem solving, coding and preparation of the presentation. In the initial phase of every hackathon participants are required to create a team. In the second phase participants engage in creative problemsolving activities, in the third phase the program gets written and in the last one the pitch is created. Hackathons are an effective way to literally “hack” existing problems and find creative and tangible technological solutions. Figure 3 depicts the working of SIH 2019. Structure and format of the steps in the competition are briefly described below. 4.1

Registration

All participating team members began their team registration process by downloading Smart India Hackathon SIH App from Google Play Store. Registration of teams had to be done by a Team Leader only. For registration students need to visit https://innovate. mygov.in/sih2018/, create a login id for your team, and Fill all the required fields. You were now ready to submit your application. Students from any branch and year of study of an engineering college were allowed to form teams. Teams will receive notification once SPOC completes authentication process. Notification will be via email as well as SMS to Team Leader. Thus the students were now ready to make an idea submission.

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Smart India Hackathon Finals

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Team Registration Idea Submission

Evaluation & Selection of Finalists

Fig. 3. Working of SIH 2019

4.2

SIH 2019 Team Formations

The participating team members were to be from the same college; no inter-college teams were allowed. However, members from different branches of the same college/institute were encouraged to form a team. Each team would comprise of 6 members including the team leader. Each team must have at least one female team member. As the software edition of the Hackathon is digital product development competition, majority of the team members must be well versed with programming skills. 4.3

SIH Idea Submission

Only those teams that were authenticated by College SPOCs were allowed to make idea submission. In Idea Submission stage, the Idea submission had to be completed by the Team Leader only. Team leaders must login on https://www.sih.gov.in/, select the problem statement of their preference and submit ideas to them. Now fill out your Idea title and description in the dedicated boxes and upload your Idea ppt in PDF format. All the participating teams shall submit the Idea Proposal Template from 7 Dec 2018 to 23 January 2019. 4.4

Idea Selection Criteria and Notification

Evaluation criteria will include novelty of the idea, complexity, clarity and details in the prescribed format, feasibility, practicability, sustainability, scale of impact, user experience and potential for future work progression. Notification about selected teams will be put up on SIH portal and will be informed to the Team Leader also will be sent

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to their respective nodal centre’s. A-view sessions and trainings during the preparation phase were available to the selected teams which were notified well in advance. 4.5

Grand Finale

The team selected for the final Hackathon, will need to travel to the assigned center which can be anywhere in India. For Software Edition, after teams were shortlisted, each team will either be allotted 2 mentors or they will have the option of selecting them from the industry or academia. On selection, total team size will be (6 + 2). Each college/institute will be responsible for the travel and accommodation of their teams for the finale. Each college/institute had to issue a stamped photo ID to each member of the teams selected. College photo ID was mandatory for participating in the finale. 4.6

Nationwide Phenomenal Response

A total of 532 problem statements (334 software and 198 hardware) were released By 18 Union Ministries and 95 Companies/Industries/NGO. A total of 34815 teams from 2235 institutions registered from all over India. Participating teams that were authenticated by College SPOCs were allowed to make idea submission. In Idea Submission stage, 57897 Ideas were submitted, as more than one idea could be submitted by a team, out of 57897, 50046 ideas were approved by around 1000 evaluators who were involved in the selection process.

5 Case Study Hackathon Experience: ‘AndroDigi’ We formed our team very close to the start of the hackathon as soon as the problem statements were released. SIH2019 had a total of 504 ‘Problem Statements’ from 95 industries and 18 Central Govt. Ministries/agencies also from leading public and private organizations, union ministries and NGOs in India. Participating teams were free to select the problem statement depending on their interest. Form our college we had 15 teams, each working on a problem statement of their choice. Out of 15 team 2 teams were selected for the grand finale at Mahauli, Chandigarh and second at Jamshedpur (Jharkhand). ‘AndroDigi’ was the name given to the artifact designed by the selected team to be developed for AICH APPRAISERS AUCTIONERS & VALUERS. For the given problem statement only 4 teams from all over India were selected, ours was one of them. The second author was the mentor for team ‘AndroDigi’ who played a significant role in guiding the students for SIH 2019. Currently the AICH APPRAISERS existing approach is semi automatic involving manual clerical task, however it faces several issues. The problems faced by them was manually filling valuation data from the site location, capturing asset images on site further adding of captured images of the asset into the word report, the valuation report had be signed manually and then scanned and converted into pdf and sent to client through email as there was no provision of automatic report generation (.pdf) as shown in the diagram below (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 4. Existing (Left) system, Proposed AndroDigi (Right) system

The design case was for students to design an App Based Valuation Report of Mobile Assets i.e. to design an automated digitized mobile application to generate digitally signed valuation report for inspection. The functional prototype was to be launched on a mobile platform, specifically an Android and later on other platforms as well. The proposed AndroDigi Application consisted of the following features for the automated inspection process. 1. Login and OPT generation: Login to the application by the inspection Officer followed by form filling using the AndroDigi Application at the Inspection Yard. Valuation Report contains the detail information of Assets. 2. Asset Description Form Filling: Inspection officer will verify the assets and fill the details of each part of the vehicle. All the parameter will be filled and submitted. 3. Cost to Bidder: Filling Cost to bidder data. Add cost to bidder to the report 4. Camera & Digital Signature: Using Mobile camera to capture photographs of vehicle using the installed developed Androdigi application thus reducing manual effort of transfer, resizing, cropping of pictures.

Fig. 5. AndroDigi: modules and functionalities

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5. Add images of Asset to the Report authenticator will add digital signature after Inspection Authentication using digital signature ensuring integrity. 6. PDF generation & Share: Generate pdf of the report, Share the report to the client through various approach. Facility to share the valuation report using mail, what up, hangouts as shown in the Fig. 5. SDLC Phase

SIH Module

AndroDigi Design Phases Define the system to be developed along with its timeline, setting the project scope in 36 hours. Task Specification and allotting the project modules among the six students .Hand drawn sketches were drawn during this stage for the modules described above. Login & OPT Generation

Asset Description Form Filling

Cost to Bidder

PDF Generation & Sharing

Stage 1 Analysis & Design

Stage 2 UML Design

Stage 3 GUI Web Design

Stage 4 ProtoType @ Grand Finale

Fig. 6. Stage wise design and development of ‘Andro Digi’ functional prototype at the SIH Grand Finale.

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Fig. 7. AndroDigi team along with mentors working in groups as the invitees (SIH Judges) interacted with them.

Figure 6, shows the stage wise process of the design during the 36 h of the hackathon. The Subsections below present the modules name and the work carried out for the software development (Fig. 7).

6 Discussion SIH 2019 has proven to be encouraging of experimentation and creativity, and is challenge orientated. This is because the crafted designs, in accordance with the challenge, seem to address the design case. This goes to confirm the impact the hackathon had on the students “level of thinking thereby fulfilling the purpose for which the event was organized. Indeed, one commented that: “I enjoyed been part of this event.” Though hackathon may have been explored mildly as a tool to teach and learn Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) courses, its relevance to aiding students

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to learn cannot be overlooked. Based on our experience from the event, we relish the thought that hackathon should be intensified in education in order to motivate CSE pedagogy. We recommend that in hackathons, if employed in CSE education, experts from job-related environment should be invited. This intent would enhance students” understanding, participation and collaboration.

7 Conclusion In the end, the results show that the use of hackathon helped in achieving the learning goals of (Competitive Programming). The students expressed their satisfaction in the fact that it provided them with motivation to learn through practice. Also, students agreed that the event helped them to think collaboratively for refined ideas. The overwhelming satisfaction expressed by the students goes to confirm that hackathon brings out the best creative skills from people through problem-solving. The findings suggest that the combination of a hackathon event and a model for 21st century learning can be effective in motivating and increasing the self-efficacy of Computer science & engg. and information technology students in a number of emerging technological contexts such as artificial intelligence, Cloud computing, IoT and wearable. Acknowledgment. We would like to thank AICTE, Smart India Hackathon Team, the Government of India and entire research team of Persistent System for organizing the SIH 2019. I would specially like to thank my colleague Mr. Anil S. Naik for his support in mentoring the student’s teams along with me. We also appreciate the hardwork and persistence of the AndroDIgi Team headed by Gurpreet Kaur (Rahedi Jaya Nanakram), Ghodke Kaveri, Khandekar Divya, Irabatti Vinayak, Sindgi Shantesh, Chillal Mahesh. We thank Dr. L.M.R.J. Lobo (Head of Information Technology Dept.), Prof. Mrs. Manisha A. Nirgude, Faculty of IT Dept. of Walchand Institute of Technology–Solapur for their constant motivation and guidance also my colleagues friends from WIT for encouraging me.

References 1. Chowdhury, J.: Hacking health: bottom-up innovation for healthcare. Technol. Innov. Manag. Rev. 2(7), 31–35 (2012) 2. Awasekar, D.: Effect of program visualization to teach computer programming in a resource constrained classroom. In: Technology for Education Conference 2013, IIT, Khagragpur (2013) 3. Robins, G.: Teaching Theoretical Computer Science at the Undergraduate Level: Experiences, Observations, and Proposals to Improve the Status Quo (n.d.). http://128.143.137.29/ *robins/papers/Teaching_Theoretical_Computer_Science_at_the_Undergraduate_Level.pdf. Accessed 7 Mar 2016 4. Kolog, E.A., Sutinen, E., Nygren, E.: Hackathon for learning digital theology in computer science. Mod. Educ. Comput. Sci. 8(6), 1–12 (2016) 5. Richard, G., Kafai, Y.: StitchFest: diversifying a college hackathon to broaden participation and perceptions in computing. In: SIGSE 2015 Proceedings of the 46th Technical Symposium in Computer Science Education, pp. 114–119 (2015) 6. https://www.sih.gov.in/sih2019

Author Index

A Abásolo, Maria José, 492 Abdul Latip, Mohd Amir, 446 Abiden, Muhammad Zain Ul, 229 Absi, Rafik, 256 Ahmed, Syed Masaab, 229 Akatimagool, Somsak, 406, 674, 892 Aksyanova, Anna V., 644 Alptekin, Mesut, 549 Armijo-Moreta, Betty, 246 Arshad, Muhammad Minhaj, 229 Astafeva, Adelina Erkinovna, 119 Awasekar, Dipali Dilip, 946 B Badaruzzaman, Wan Hamidon Wan, 880 Bao, Teresa Marín, 740 Barabanova, Svetlana, 267 Barabanova, Svetlana V., 566, 578, 644, 663 Baranova, Tatyana A., 614, 800 Batsila, Marianthi, 193, 395, 781 Bernsteiner, Reinhard, 309 Blázquez-Parra, Elidia Beatriz, 740 Bobić, Aleksandar, 67 Bogoudinova, Roza, 137 Boko, Ulrich Hermann Sèmèvo, 164 Bondarenko, Tetiana, 301 Briukhanova, Nataliia, 301 Bronskaya, Weronika, 924 Bussaman, Sittichai, 419 C Castro-Davila, Willyams, 246 Centea, Dan, 830 Chaikittiratana, Arisara, 503

Chaithanu, Kitchar, 456 Chang, Yu-Shan, 358 Chatwattana, Pinanta, 336, 808 Cheong, Christopher, 67 Cheong, France, 67 Chien, Yu-Hung, 358 Chujitarom, Wannaporn, 91 Chunpungsuk, Chananchida, 336 Chutipascharoen, Anutchai, 480 Comber, Oswald, 903 Cuji, Blanca Rocio, 492 D Darcherif, Moumen, 256 Degboe, Bessan, 172 Dégboé, Bessan Melckior, 164 Dias, W. Priyan S., 770 Diatta, Baboucar, 172, 182 Diop, Papa Samour, 206 Dulalaeva, Liudmila, 143 E El Abbassi, Ikram, 256 El Amrani, Najat, 731 El-Seoud, Samir A., 346 El-Sofany, Hosam Farouk, 346 Esparragoza, Ivan Enrique, 915 Evans, Maria J., 915 F Fakhretdinova, Gulnaz, 119, 137, 143 Fazekas, Christian, 3 Filippou, Justin, 67 Fooprateepsiri, Rerkchai, 419

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. E. Auer et al. (Eds.): ICL 2019, AISC 1134, pp. 957–960, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7

958 G Gaglou, Kokou, 182 Galarce-Miranda, Claudia, 589 Galaup, Michel, 125 Galikhanov, Mansur Floridovich, 366, 376, 663, 793, 818 Gamage, Anjalie, 218 Gavilanes López, Wilma Lorena, 492 Gazizulina, Liliya Rustemovna, 119 Gero, Aharon, 541 Gomez, Fabian, 256 Gormaz-Lobos, Diego, 589 Grafinger, Manfred, 309 Guachimbosa, Víctor Hugo, 246 Guetl, Christian, 67, 151 Gulk, Elena B., 614, 800 H Halkude, Shashikant Annarao, 946 Halwatura, Rangika U., 101, 770 Hamzah, Siti Hawa, 880 Hasegawa, Makoto, 50 Hauß, Robert, 855 Hazzan, Orit, 541 Hernández-Toro, Víctor, 319 Hinon, Kanitta, 288 Hortsch, Hanno, 589 Hsiao, Hsien-Sheng, 358 I Iagupov, Vasyl, 301 Idrus, Aminah Binti, 446 Imbulpitiya, Asanthika, 111, 218 Intarawiset, Nattapong, 674 Ioannidis, George, 193 Irismetov, Alisher I., 650 Isoc, Dorin, 601 J Jäggle, Georg, 696 Jeenawong, Rattapon, 674 Juravleva, Ludmila V., 623 K Kadeeva, Zulfiya, 240 Kaewkorn, Supod, 934 Kakaris, Mattheos, 256 Kalteis, Gerald, 855 Karanovic, Bisera, 256 Karunanayaka, Shironica P., 101 Kaybiyaynen, Alla A., 240, 663 Kengpol, Athakorn, 528 Kersten, Steffen, 589

Author Index Khafisova, Leisan, 137, 650 Khasanova, Gulnara Fatykhovna, 376, 849 Khatsrinova, Julia, 267, 818, 924 Khatsrinova, Olga Yurievna, 267, 366, 818, 924 Khusainova, Guzel Rafaelevna, 119 Kiew, Peck Loo, 707 Klemyashova, Elena, 650 Klinieam, Kanokwan, 634 Kodagoda, Nuwan, 218 Kohama, Takeshi, 27 Koohathongsumrit, Nitidetch, 528 Kopf, Johannes, 151 Koppensteiner, Gottfried, 696 Korobkova, Venera Viktorovna, 39 Korytov, Igor Vladimirovna, 871 Kosolapova, Larisa Alexandrovna, 39 Kovalenko, Denys, 301 Kozlovskii, Pavel, 614, 800 Kraysman, Natalia V., 578, 644 Krootjohn, Soradech, 480 Kruglirov, Victor N., 614 L la Torre, Ana Vera-de, 60 Labriji, Lahoucine, 731 Lagarrigue, Pierre, 125 Larkin, Teresa L., 516 Lepuschitz, Wilfried, 696 Liew, Chia Pao, 707, 880 Lisina, Olga, 240 M Makarov, Timofey G., 578 Matzer, Franziska, 3 Mayer, Hubert, 903 Md Salleh, Shaharuddin, 446 Meethom, Warapoj, 528 Membrillo-Hernández, Jorge, 760 Mendoza, Valeria, 60 Mendy, Gervais, 164, 172, 182, 206 Mercadier, Catherine, 125 Merdan, Munir, 696 Michler, Oliver, 719 Minamide, Akiyuki, 749, 755 Mohammad, Shahrin, 880 Molnár, György, 277 Mosina, Margarita Alexandrovna, 39 Motschnig, Renate, 903 Moussetad, Mohamed, 731 Muhammad, Nasim, 839 Myshko, Fyodor G., 578

Author Index N Nagy, Katalin, 277 Nasonkin, Vladimir V., 644 Ngo Bilong, Jeanne Roux, 206 Nikolic, Gordana, 256 Nikonova, Nataliya V., 566, 644 Noulnoppadol, Sivadol, 674 Nuangpirom, Pinit, 456 Nuankaew, Pratya, 419 Nuankaew, Wongpanya, 419 O Olennikova, Marina V., 800 Omari, Kamal, 731 Ortega Gonzalez, Luis Mauro, 861 Osipov, Petr N., 650 Ouchaouka, Lynda, 731 Ouya, Samuel, 164, 172, 182, 206 Ovsienko, Lyubov’ Vasilievna, 366 Ozeki, Takashi, 27 P Paco Sie, Adam Ismael, 206 Páez-Quinde, Cristina, 60, 319, 327 Palomares Vigil, Antonio, 740 Pavlova, Irina V., 566 Peramunugamage, Anuradha, 101, 770 Perez-Lozano, Delia, 16 Phanniphong, Kanakarn, 419 Pingaud, Herve, 125 Piriyasurawong, Pallop, 79, 91, 336, 382, 808 Pirker, Johanna, 151 Plodpradit, Pasin, 469 Pons Lelardeux, Catherine, 125 Pornpeerakeat, Sacharuck, 469, 503 Porras, María-Emilia, 327 Posekany, Alexandra, 696 Probst, Andreas, 309 Puteh, Marlia, 707, 880 R Rajabzadeh, Amin Reza, 830 Ramírez-Medrano, Alicia, 760 Ratnayake, H. Uditha W., 101 Redin, Lev V., 793 Rehatschek, Herwig, 3 Reyna-González, Juan Manuel, 760 Richter, Robert, 719 Rocha-Lona, Luis, 16 Rodriguez, Jorge, 915

959 Rozhkova, Svetlana Vladimirovna, 871 Ruangsiri, Kanokwan, 406, 456 Ruangvanich, Supparang, 79 S Salazar Mera, Javier Vinicio, 492 Samarakoon, S. M. Uthpala Prasadini, 111 Sánchez-Guerrero, Javier, 246 Sannikova, Anna Illarionovna, 39 Schachinger, Gabriele, 309, 855 Schurikova, Larisa G., 578 Schwarzbach, Paul, 719 Seck, Massamba, 172, 182 Seliverstova, Olga, 267 Serikul, Peerasak, 433 Seyed, Cheikhane, 206 Shagieva, Rozalina V., 566 Shaikh, Sarmad Ahmed, 229 Shakhnov, Vadim A., 623 Shekh-Abed, Aziz, 541 Siriwithtayathanakun, Phanuphon, 684 Sow, Djiby, 206 Srinivasan, Seshasai, 830, 839 Sriyanpong, Pichet, 684 Stamouli, Anna, 256 Sulca-Guale, Xavier, 319 Suntsova, Maria S., 566, 663 Suppakhun, Yupin, 433 Suriyawansa, Kushnara, 218 Surpare, Kitti, 634 Surubaru, Teodora, 601 T Tabolina, Anastasia V., 614, 800 Takemata, Kazuya, 749, 755 Talbi, Mohammed, 731 Tan, Kim Geok, 707 Tarasova, Ekaterina, 267 Tarasova, Ekaterina Nikolaevna, 366 Tarinova, Natalya Vladimirovna, 39 Temmen, Katrin, 549 Tikhonov, Dmitrii V., 800 Torres-Oñate, Francisco, 327 Troitsky, Alexander, 924 Trujillo-Aguilera, Francisco David, 740 Tsareva, Ekaterina, 137, 143 Tsichouridis, Charilaos, 193, 395, 781 Tsihouridis, Anastasios, 395 Tungpantong, Chanin, 382 Turner, Elena, 240

960 U Uantrai, Pichit, 892 Usoof, Hakim A., 770 Ustinova, Irina Georgievna, 871 V Vajda, Christian, 3 Vásquez López, Virgilio, 861 Vavougios, Dennis, 193, 395, 781 Vázquez Sánchez, Agustin, 861 Velasteguí-Hernández, Santiago, 319 Vincze, Markus, 696 Viteri, Maria-Fernanda, 327 Vlasov, Andrey I., 623

Author Index W Watanabe, Eiji, 27 Wattanasin, Wanwisa, 808 Wulansari, Ossy Dwi Endah, 151 Y Yakimova, Julia Yurievna, 119 Yanuschik, Olga Vitalievich, 871 Yao, Chun-Kai, 358 Yushko, Sergey Vladimirovich, 366, 663 Z Zaripov, Renat Nazipovich, 849