Summer Event Abstracts

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Utilising innovation from the pandemic to enhance the future of practical engineering education.

Andrew Garrard University of Sheffield The department of Multidisciplinary Engineering Education at the University of Sheffield delivers all the laboratory and workshop practical teaching for the Faculty of Engineering, spanning 7 departments and 4 interdisiclary programmes. Our focus on only practical teaching means we have invested significant effort into determining and articulating why we provide students with practical sessions and the learning we aim for students to achieve by engaging with the activities. The solid foundation of robust pedagogy was crucial in our response to the Covid-19 pandemic, firstly during lockdown and latterly with reduced capacity. MEE developed a suite of tactics to fulfil the defined learning outcomes by translating the face to face into remote practicals. If it is possible to meet learning outcomes with remote methods, what is the value in returning to our previous paradigm of putting students into expensive teaching laboratories? In this presentation I will talk about our justification for continued advocacy of in-person practical teaching based on the benefits of face to face labs beyond compliance with meeting learning outcomes. I will present our vision for the utilisation of the innovations we developed in response to the pandemic, both in remote and blended practicals, to enchanted our practice. Systems and methods we put in place have the potential to disrupt the tradition of highly structured learning, and present opportunities for students to tailor their experience into a custom format while remaining resource efficient for MEE to deliver.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Reusable Teaching Blocks Andrew Garrard Stephen Beck (University of Sheffield) University of Sheffield We propose the idea of discrete, reusable teaching blocks, which are stand alone (or with a small amount of defined pre-requisite knowledge) digital, scalable objects that are used to deliver compartmentalised theoretical content. We feel that the time for this idea is now. After the pandemic, educators have been kickstarted into developing online resources, and gained experience, confidence and competence in doing so. The sector has had an opportunity to test enmasse what works well and what doesn't. Students have been forced to embrace new ways of being served content and have identified what aspects they find valuable. We can separate the functions of producing teaching material blocks and the function of selecting, arranging and contextualising them. If the job of producing the contents is done once, done well and used by many different courses, the intellectual effort of the educator, previously used to build the content, can be focused on the curation placed in the context of the disciple. The zeitgeist in engineering education is for learning through authentic or problem based approach. This is an excellent approach to engage students with real world applications and demonstrate the value of their knowledge. But it is important that we find mechanisms to actually teach the large amount of knowledge, understanding and skills that are required to engineer solutions to problems. Any tools used to make the teaching of engineering concepts more efficient allows more effort that can be expended on facilitating more open ended project type learning.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Take home laboratories enhancing a threshold approach to assessment John Anthony Rossiter University of Sheffield This presentation has a dual focus of threshold assessment and take home laboratories and focuses on effective integration into module delivery and assessment. It is shown how using a threshold assessment strategy can significantly enhance the efficacy of the take home laboratory usage.

Accreditation is an essential component of a university engineering education. Universities need to demonstrate that their graduates have acquired a range of skills and the evidence requirement is becoming more stringent (from 2022). In the simplest terms, students must pass every module/course which differs from previous practice where students could carry a small number of soft failures. Threshold assessment is an approach to help staff and students provide this evidence and thus convert what may have been soft fails into passes in terms of accreditation requirements.

Thresholding can also help with managing student stress.

Student access to laboratory facilities is always limited and thus take home laboratories have become popular. Take home labs give students 24/7 access to an authentic engineering hardware experience. Ideally these should be highly portable, low risk, low cost, and easy to deploy on a student laptop using readily available software. This author used a heat exchanger kit from J. Hedengren (Approx £30, arduino based). This presentation shows how the confluence of changes to accreditation requirements and thus the introduction of threshold assessment alongside the adoption of take home laboratories produced a very effective pedagogy and one where the used of the take home kit was widely appreciated.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Using Moodle Checklists for Improving Student Online Engagement Chloe Agg Alexa Kirkaldy (University of Warwick), Andrew Brendon-Penn (University of Warwick) University of Warwick This study investigates the use of checklists to promote engagement with on-line learning materials and activities provided via the institution’s VLE (Moodle) during the Covid-19 pandemic, in an environment of 100% remote on-line teaching.

Three taught modules from departments across the institution at different academic levels piloted in-built Moodle checklist functionality. The functionality allows the authors to create checklists from which primary data is collected relating to engagement with, and completion of, course materials.

Primary data and student voice indicate that checklists are useful for self-monitoring of progress, with a sub-set of students maintaining checklist engagement. Students asked for checklists to be used on all modules and found checklists beneficial for wellbeing.

Further research is recommended to ascertain if checklists provide a prolonged engagement acceleration and the comparison of checklist usage with success in module assessment. The authors welcome collaboration to promote further data collection.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Transition to online project supervision and co-ordination Alexa Kirkaldy Chloe Agg (University of Warwick) University of Warwick This case study highlights how student voice, technology and relationships with stakeholders were used to enhance an UG dissertation module to provide guidance, reassurance and a healthy working environment for students and staff during COVID. The remote teaching of projects included early creation of short videos in a variety of formats to gain practice and knowledge of student preference, the development of an online assessment and moderation system, and negotiation of COVID safe alternatives to practical work. The authors developed the Virtual Learning Environment to include robust materials for online teaching, and a variety of methodologies to promote student engagement.

The authors shared their module developments with staff to spread best practise, and with students to encourage feedback into the development process. The project module extends over two departments, 350 students, 120 supervisors, and a plethora of specialists such as Wellbeing Services.

Best practise was shared not only within the departments but throughout the University.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Staff experiences of planning and delivering Hybrid Flexible (Hy-flex) practical session within a foundation year Physical Science module.

Debjani Goswami Dr. Rebecca Broadbent Aston University Abstract: This presentation concerns staff experiences of the delivery of hybrid flexible (HyFlex) physics practical sessions for a cohort of approximately 200 students on an Engineering Foundation Programme at a UK University.

As at the start of the term, small group socially distanced teaching was being conducted on campus, the decision was made to deliver an existing experiment using the teaching team time to focus on this delivery and lab report writing support rather than alter the experiments to provide multiple “at home” options.

Whilst students were invited to an on-campus practical session, some were unable to attend and others did not wish to attend for safety concerns, therefore a HyFlex session was run and a purely online session was also run towards the end of the term. The aims of all sessions were the same and the team strived to create comparable learning experiences.

To ensure that students were fully supported and engaged in the online session extra resources were created, for example, a more detailed lab manual and purpose-made video. The online session had more staff involved to ensure that there was always someone monitoring the chat to respond to technical issues or questions promptly. In addition, for all students, a lab manual, Youtube videos, and different animations were provided via the VLE to ensure that students had access to resources before and during the session as we were unable to demonstrate and assist the students as closely as normal due to social distancing measures.

Through a mixture of staff-led discussion, student-led discussion, pre-recorded demonstrations, and data contained within a lab booklet the online session aimed to replicate the key learning objectives of the on-campus session.

Whilst the team feels that this approach was successful and student outcomes were not seen to be dissimilar for each engagement type, many lessons were learned that would improve delivery should a HyFlex approach be taken in the future.

Keyword: Hybrid, online, on campus, video, hyflex.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Hybrid teaching - what does it mean for labs?

Adam Funnell University of Sheffield During the covid-19 pandemic, most course content rapidly moved to online delivery. As we emerge, a model of "hybrid teaching" seems to be the dominant plan for engineering higher education, including some online didactic content delivery alongside more meaningful face-to-face sessions. But what does this mean for labs? Excellent work has happened to maintain practical learning outcomes, even through remote delivery of programmes. Can we use all of these advances to seamlessly transition between in-person lab experiences, remote practical teaching, and simulations, while maintaining a coherent student experience? We reflect on the lessons learned by the Multidisciplinary Engineering Education team at the University of Sheffield in the field of electronics and control engineering, and computer science, and present a vision of the future of practical engineering education.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Humanising and personalising the virtual learning environment: reflections on Moodle and large class teaching Lauren Schrock WMG, University of Warwick The COVID-19 pandemic intensified challenges to build personal relationships and a sense of belonging between students and between students and staff in university. This is because learning and engagement was mostly undertaken in a virtual learning environment, which at its worst could be felt as cold or impersonal and contribute to a decline in student satisfaction (e.g. Office for Students, 2021). To resolve this, it is important to consider how virtual learning environments can support engagement and belonging through personalisation and humanisation. A systematic review

by Parker, Mahler, and Edwards (2021) on humanizing online learning experiences identified various pedagogical techniques for creating engaging and caring virtual learning environments to support students to achieve their academic potential. In recognising this review, this presentation considers these techniques in the context of engineering education this past academic year. Taking a reflexive account on the design of a module for 1,200+ postgraduate students from business and engineering disciplines, the experiences on personalising and humanising a Moodle space for a large class is shared. Examples include encouraging peer cultural exchanges through forums to promote inclusive dialogue and personalising engagement through badges. Challenges in personalising and humanising the virtual learning environment are considered with suggestions for strengthening these strategies for the next academic year.

Office for Students (2021) The National Student Survey: Student experience during the pandemic.

Insight 10 (July). Available at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/1480/insight-brief-10nss-finalforweb.pdf [Accessed 20.7.2021].

Parker, N., Mahler, B.P., and Edwards, M. (2021) Humanizing online learning experiences. Journal of Educators Online, 18 (2), pp. 119-129.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Engaging with online learners: lessons from lockdown for next academic year Dr Jude Brereton Dr Kat Young (STEM Learning Ltd.) University of York In 2019, academic staff and PhD students in the Department of Electronic Engineering, University of York developed a free 3-week online course titled “Engineering the Future: Creating the Amazing”, hosted on the FutureLearn platform. The course was aimed at younger learners, and was intended to showcase the interdisciplinary nature of engineering, to highlight everyday and global issues that engineers work on, and to portray engineering as an exciting career option.

A key aspect of FutureLearn courses is the ability for learners to comment and interact. The first run of the course had a comparable number of ‘active’ learners (those who have completed a step) to the average FutureLearn course, but substantially fewer ‘social’ learners (those who comment). This generally aligns with the findings of Swinnerton et al. (2017) that older learners, and those with greater educational experience, are more likely to post comments.

However, in the two subsequent course runs, both of which occurred during the UK Covid-19 lockdown, we saw an increase in the number and proportion of social learners. In this presentation we will outline the changes made to encourage comments and social learning interactions. More importantly, we will discuss what we have learnt about engaging with online learners during lockdown, and which aspects we might bring forward into our blended on-campus teaching model for the 2021/2022 academic year and beyond.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Enriching the Student Experience in VLEs: Promoting Interactivity and Engagement Iain Duncan Stalker University of Bolton Virtual-Learning Environments (VLEs) have been an important feature of contemporary Higher Education (HE) with the pandemic promoting their status to essential.

Yet, VLEs often fall short of student expectations: students want a little fun and interaction; and at key times, quick responses to questions and reassurance outside of working hours.

The aim is to showcase simple, effective examples of how to embed html and javascript into VLEs (e.g., Moodle, Blackboard) to promote interaction and engagement, and provide clarification and support.

The session will start with a brief overview of relevant frameworks of e-pedagogy and models of engagement, informed by student expectations.

Examples of interventions will be given, explained, and related to relevant frameworks and models. A set of general principles will be drawn out and finally pointers to useful resources given.

The session is intended for anyone who makes use of VLEs as part of their delivery.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Reflections on Interactive Technologies to facilitate online/blended teaching of a Quality Systems module for Degree Apprentices Rinkal Desai University of Warwick The threat of Covid-19 in 2020 forced many institutions to adopt new ways of delivering education to students. Whilst this may be seen as ‘’emergency remote teaching’, there is much than can be learned from these experiences such that we can transition into ‘online (or blended) learning’ for a post-Covid 19 learning environment.

In this session, a reflection of educational technologies to support online learning of Quality Systems to degree apprentices is presented. Technologies that have been employed to support the students learning such as ‘green screen lectures’ and use of interactive tools to facilitate group learning and feedback to individual learners during seminars will be discussed, as well as initial feedback provided by the students regarding their effectiveness.

An innovative aspect of the learning approach is/was the use of a small cycle self- regulated learning model (forethought, performance, self-reflection) as the underpinning structure of the interactive elements to scaffold progressive development of skills and confidence.

This session will be of interest to any practitioner who is interested in the use of educational technology to facilitate student engagement.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Digital learning experience of engineering students in the pandemic: the perspective of graduate teaching assistants Yiduo Wang Zhizhuo Su, Di Wang University of Warwick In this unprecedented world crisis of COVID-19, traditional offline courses are forced to be delivered online (Gamage et al., 2020; Watermeyer et al., 2021). A recent survey by JISC (2021) found students have struggled with this change of delivery due to difficulties in accessing online resources, overwhelming and independent work, communication and concentrating, isolation and longlines issues in online learning. Therefore, how to provide a positive digital learning experience for students is an important concern in UK Higher Education. Leading this presentation is three doctoral researchers in WMG as graduate teaching assistants (GTA). They are an indispensable part of the teaching community at the University of Warwick to deliver modules and facilitate WMG engineering students’ learning. Owing to the dual identity of student and teaching staff, doctoral researchers have a unique perspective in investigating students digital learning experiences (Wald & Harland, 2020). As students, doctoral researchers empathize with the affective impact and physical constraints of online learning that hinder the student experience and learning. And as tutors, doctoral researchers recognize the pedagogical strategies that the digital tools enable, such as peer learning or reflection. Therefore, this presentation provides a reflective evaluation of how effective certain digital tools and their uses are in supporting the constructive alignment of learning (Nurmikko-Fuller & Hart, 2020) while benefiting the student experience. In sharing a reflexive account of experiences with digital tools for learning and teaching, guidance is provided how students’ digital learning experiences can be improved.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Enhancing online/blended teaching - Examining the readiness of teaching staff for online/blended teaching Susan Wakenshaw David Reynolds (WMG, University of Warwick); Dave Harvey (WMG, University of Warwick) WMG University of Warwick Online/blended teaching has been introduced to teaching in higher education for two decades (Singh & Thurman, 2019; Scherer, et al, 2021). But the inconsistency in the implementation and adoption of online teaching has resulted in the high variations in terms of student learning experiences across institutions, disciplines, and even programs (Bernard, et al; Scherer, et al, 2021).

Covid 19 has led us to embrace the opportunities of online/blended teaching in Universities in the UK. To ensure that all students can have the same access to the high quality of learning and teaching, teaching staff have strived to improve online teaching with the enormous support from educational institutions. Despite of this, it is necessary to systematically examine our readiness for adopting online/blended teaching. The purposes of the research are as follows: (1) to identify the various groups regarding the readiness for blended teaching; (2) to identify the needs and factors to enhance the competency for online/blended teaching; and (3) to identify the institutional support needed for improving online/blended teaching. This research was conducted in the context of engineering discipline at WMG.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Creating an evidence-base for technology-enhanced learning in post-pandemic engineering education Ninna Makrinov University of Warwick Engineering educators responded quickly to the need to move teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many were involved in technology-enhanced learning pre-pandemic, although competency levels varied. The transition to emergency practices enabled educators to continue offering quality teaching in a fully online teaching and learning environment. Emerging evidence is pointing to effective online practices during the pandemic (García-Alberti et al., 2021, Karim, 2021, Deka, 2021).

In this presentation, I reflect upon what engineering education might become in the future. I pose that the evidence on effective teaching and learning before and during the pandemic does not predict what will be considered good practice in a post-pandemic world. This is because incoming engineering students will have a different set of skills; they are likely to be savvier with educationrelated technology and less experienced in interacting ‘in the flesh’. Student expectations will be set by the experiences of teaching and learning during the pandemic.

I argue that pedagogical research in engineering education will need to focus on a deep understanding of our students’ needs and experiences and in building an evidence-base of effective technology- enhanced learning practices for 2022 and beyond.

References DEKA, P. K. 2021. Factors Influencing Student Engagement in Online Learning during the COVID - 19 pandemic period in India. Journal of Management in Practice, 6, 1-16.

GARCÍA-ALBERTI, M., SUÁREZ, F., CHIYÓN, I. & MOSQUERA FEIJOO, J. C. 2021. Challenges and expriences of online evaluation in courses of civil engineering during the lockdown learning due ot the COVID-19 pandemic. . Education Sciences, 11.

KARIM, M. A. 2021. Hybrid and online synchronous delivery of environmental engineering during covid-19 pandemic: a comparative study on perception, attitude, and assessment. European Journal of STEM Education, 6, 05.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future What information can digital story telling tell us about the motivation of Engineering Foundation Year Students?

NATALIE WINT Swansea University Engineering foundation years are designed for students who do not have the qualifications or knowledge needed to start an undergraduate course, and therefore provide access into higher education (HE). Foundation year students are typically diverse, and possess varying degrees of experience, skills and knowledge. Some may face dispositional or situational barriers (Harrison, 1993) which can affect retention and attrition. Changes to higher HE policy and funding has resulted in increased competition between institutions to attract students onto these schemes, this resulting in an increased interest in the motivations for study, which may be expected to differ from those who qualify for entrance onto the first year of traditional degree programmes. This presentation will describe the thematic analysis of student digital stories to uncover the interests, values and motivations of students studying on an engineering foundation course. Suggestions as to how this information can be used will be made.

Harrison R. (1993). Disaffection and access. In J. Calder (Ed.), Disaffection and diversity. Overcoming barriers to adult learning. London: Falmer.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future Exploring virtual spaces for learning, collaborating and exhibiting Chloe Agg University of Warwick During the pandemic many of us have moved to online spaces for teaching out of necessity. These spaces have largely been chosen based on what our institutions have recommended, approved or paid license fees for. Where choice is available though, this study examines functionality of software relative to pedagogic outcomes. The sharing and development of resources, the ability for teaching staff to engage with multiple student groups, and networking with outside parties are amongst the functions examined.

Further to this, the benefits of virtual spaces for use beyond the pandemic is explored. In addition to remote teaching providing a COVID safe environment, it also enable a geographically diverse set of students to take part in the learning. Students who are otherwise unable or unwilling to contribute to face to face sessions are facilitated to engage, and the setting is more accessible for many students with disabilities or neurodiversity.

As such, the study finds that some aspects of remote teaching, in particular virtual spaces should be kept as we move towards a new normal.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021

9th September 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM What happens post-COVID? How engineering education has evolved for a digital future EXECUTE: Exploring Eye Tracking Data to Support E-learning Ahsan Raza Khan Ahmed Zoha; Sajjad Hussain; Muhammad Ali Imran University of Glasgow COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to education systems all over the world, and remote teaching becomes the predominant model for education delivery in this crisis. Under these circumstances, evaluation and keep a check on student engagement is became a challenging task. In class room environment, experience teachers has the flexibility to monitor student engagement and intervene if student is out of focus. However, in online learning, such intervention is not possible and further, there is no mechanism to gauge the student attention. In recent times, the studies showed that there is a strong relationship between the gaze and learning behaviour, making it possible to detect the student engagement using gaze tracking. Most of the existing research in this area is using the commercial hardware which is expensive, non-scalable and only suitable in lab setting only. Therefore, to address this issue, we have developed a scalable, and privacy aware student profiling system based on-self calibrated eye-tracking on the browser using webcams to measure the students’ attention and learning behaviour. Furthermore, to measure the student engagement, a novel attention score model is proposed which categorised the students attention in three class i.e., attentive, partially attentive and non-attentive based on gaze metrics fixation, dwell time and scan path. Our results shows that a webcam based scalable attention score model is possible which can improve the overall online learning.

EERN UK and Ireland Newer Researcher Network

9th September 2021