AAEE - Australasian Engineering Education Awards

Award for Innovation in Engineering Education

In a large first-year engineering class students often feel isolated and may not have the confidence to ask staff for help. At the same time staff have less time to spend helping individual students. Professor Brian Stone and Dr Nathan Scott of the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at the University of Western Australia, winners of the Award for Innovation in Engineering Education, have found ways of using computers to overcome these and other educational problems.

The computer system they developed is based on some observations of students:

• that in a given large class, many students will make the same mistake on a given problem
• that students are pressed for time and will not use a help resource unless it is known to be efficient
• that the students at greatest risk of failure were often the same students who chose not to attend traditional small-class tutorial

The system they developed requires students to log in using a password and solve a long, but carefully chosen, sequence of engineering problems. In each problem set the problems start easy and gradually become more difficult, and each problem introduces only one or two new concepts. The problems are posed on the computer screen and the student is asked to enter an answer, with units, for each problem. Each student has different numerical parameters for each problem. The problem software is programmed to recognise not only the correct answer but a range of incorrect answers anticipated by staff. Thus the computer system is able to handle some routine student difficulties automatically, providing diagnostic help.

The system also provides a simple bulletin-board or messaging system, which is organised so that there is a separate message area for each problem. If a student is having difficulty with a given problem, a message can be posted and staff are immediately notified. Staff – and other students – respond to messages and both the question and answer are saved for all students to see. Staff can see the name of the student posting a message but students are anonymous to each other. Staff only have to answer a given student question once.

One of the highlights of their innovative computer-based system for delivering tutorials in Engineering Dynamics is that it encourages collaborative effort between students. Students valued this approach, and their competence in the subject has improved. Staff time spent on activities such as marking has been greatly reduced, and is now focussed on higher-order tasks, and assisting specific students.

The system is eminently transferable to other institutions and subject areas, and has been taken up by several other universities in Australia and Singapore. It has already been adapted to a web-based environment. Nathan and Brian's applications of technology have made use of the particular attributes and advantages of the computer as a medium for learning, rather than simply translating good teaching material into a more sophisticated medium.
The results achieved are in no small part due to Nathan and Brian's approach to teaching: that enthusiasm, inspiration and care make a crucial difference.