Active Learning Through Www: Just In Time Teaching In Digital Systems Design

In this paper, the work-in-progress project which seeks the adaptation and implementation of one undergraduate education’s most promising and readily adoptable instructional technique in recent years Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT), in an electrical and computer engineering course — Digital Systems Design is presented. JiTT involves web-based warm-up assignments which students are required to complete and submit before class. Students’ responses to these assignments are then reviewed by the instructor who makes appropriate adjustments in the teaching based on student’s understanding and concerns. The warm-up assignments, combined with classroom teaching, will lead to increased teacher-student and student-student interactions in the classroom and better learning outcomes. The outcomes of this project will be assessed by means of surveys/questionnaires and students’ achievement comparisons. If successfully implemented, JiTT will benefit both the traditional and nontraditional student groups in engineering. This project will not only introduce JiTT into a very important engineering program, but also serve as an example of using technology and innovative teaching strategies to promote active learning in undergraduate engineering education. Introduction of JiTT Just-in-Time Teaching is a feedback-intensive teaching and learning strategy [1]-[7]. In a typical implementation, students respond electronically to carefully constructed warm-up assignments due before class, and the instructor reviews the answers and adjusts the classroom lesson to meet student needs. The central component of JiTT is the feedback loop from students before class that will fundamentally affect what will happen during the subsequent in-class time. Warm-up assignments are at the heart of JiTT’s web component. These are short, web-based assignments, prompting students to think about the upcoming lesson and answer a few simple questions prior to class. These questions, when fully discussed, often have complex answers. The students are expected to develop the answers as far as they can on their own. The responses are submitted to the instructor electronically to form the framework for the classroom activities that follow. Typically, the instructor duplicates sample responses on transparencies and takes them to class. The interactive classroom session, built around these responses, replaces the traditional lecture/recitation format. In general, JiTT strategy pursues three major goals [1]-[3]: 1. To maximize the effectiveness of the classroom session.