E-Learning Tools to Facilitate Instruction of a Large Enrollment Structural Engineering Course

A significant challenge in teaching large civil engineering courses is engaging and providing feedback to students in a meaningful and timely manner. This paper presents a solution that uses e-learning tool Xorro-Q in the successful instruction of a Structures II course of 250+ second year students since 2016 at a research-intensive university in New Zealand. During the course, Xorro-Q has been utilized as an online practice-based learning tool where students can repeat questions without penalty and automatically receive detailed instructordeveloped feedback (diagrams, text, or link to website/video) in response to specific incorrect answers. Additionally, Xorro-Q permits a variety of questions used to promote student proficiency in both calculations and intuition of structural behavior. Some question styles come standard with other online homework interfaces such as multiple choice, numeric or word input, and labelling; others like hotspot images and extended text input are uniquely able to serve the needs of this type of structural engineering course. Together, the grading metrics from Xorro-Q has enabled students to receive useful feedback and instructors a snapshot of student understanding that is necessary to implement just-in-time teaching. This paper will include examples of structural engineering question styles posed to students in Xorro-Q. Furthermore, it will provide an analysis of student surveys to guide other engineering instructors on utilizing similar e-learning tools in a large enrollment course. To date, the two completed surveys indicate that repetition of questions in Xorro-Q – especially hotspot drawing questions – allowed students to develop confidence in the course topics, and detailed feedback helped them immediately address their conceptual difficulties. Introduction Xorro-Q is an online learning tool utilized to conduct synchronous (in-class) and asynchronous (homework) assessment of students using a smartphone and/or a laptop which can be either embedded into an instructor’s existing online course management system (CMS) webpage or sipmly linked to their CMS gradebook. The automatic grading and graphical feedback summaries have proven to be useful to support just-in-time teaching strategies. Before discussing the specific benefits of Xorro-Q, specifically as it was utilized in the large enrollment introductory structural engineering course, it is critical to explore the state-of-practice in online teaching technologies for assessment and just-in-time teaching. Asynchronous Online Learning Tools Rockland et al. summarizes the benefits of utilizing online CMS, specifically Moodle, as being a single repository for teaching materials and assignments. Assignments from students can be uploaded to the CMS, graded by the instructor, and re-posted onto the course page for student viewing. A disadvantage of this system is that each assignment must still be graded manually by the instructor, and for more complicated assignments beyond True/False and Multiple Choice, each submission must be commented and then posted back onto the course page. At California Polytechnic Institutes of Technology, San Luis Obispo and Pomona, Gershfeld and Chadwell implemented a series of online learning modules developed by the Wood Education Institute (WEI) and hosted on a Moodle provided by the Network of Earthquake Engineering Simulation NEEShub. The intent was to provide online media-rich lecture materials followed by short online quizzes with conceptual and technical questions. These quizzes were graded and scores presented to the student within the Moodle. A majority of grading effort for the remainder of the course remained the responsibility of the instructor which was deemed acceptable since assignments were completed by group and class sizes were relatively small. The University of Washington and the Boeing Company partnered to create an updated online training course to replace the existing one that was long, complex, and had constantly evolving content. Originally, the course consisted of slides followed by a comprehensive exam. The new version leveraged Moodle to create a video lecture series with core concepts and applied activities where students completed formative quizzes with multiple correct answers and detailed, instant feedback. This approach led to improved learning gains among the surveyed, which was promising as the online course was slated for implementation at Boeing with the potential for thousands of users. One major complaint was the simplicity of the quizzes, since drawing figures and more substantial responses from the students were not possible. Teaching by Examples and Learning by Doing (TELD) is a pedagogy based around cooperative and interactive learning, but requires specific resources for successful implementation. Huang et al. developed an online platform that utilizes the TELD method where lectures contain embedded quizzes and homework assignments as well as design projects could be tracked and uploaded. This approach effectively engaged the students and required significantly less effort than a traditional teaching method, but still required quizzes, homework and project memos to be graded by instructors. Nevertheless, the technology developed proved critical in teaching the TELD method to a large engineering classes. Synchronous Online Learning Tools While Course Management Systems provide a tremendous benefits to instructors, they are often accessed outside of the classroom environment which can make it difficult for an instructor to judge the degree of understanding students possess during a lecture. A powerful tool to address this issue is Audience Response Systems (ARS), Poll Everywhere being a common example. Popescu et al. details the integration of Poll Everywhere into an engineering classroom which allowed students to integrate their smartphones into the classroom discussion to provide instant feedback to the instructor on their knowledge of a topic. Students in the classroom answered true/false, multiple choice and free response questions created by the instructor before class or in real time. Each response was sent to the instructor in the form of a text message that could appear on a PowerPoint slide or the computer screen. The study saw an increase in student motivation and participation, as well as a more informed and confident instructor. This was particularly valuable due to diverse student body in the classroom, many of whom were reluctant to participate in hand raising. Kappers and Cutler investigated the use of Poll Everywhere in a classroom with large attendance (n = 291) and sought to use the technology to increase engagement and attendance. They believed they were successful, with students reporting a greater feeling of engagement during lecture and an increased desire to attend future class sessions. Another instructor blended the use of Poll Everywhere and hand-drawn engineering sketches submitted separately. Bernold taught a large engineering class, and used the ARS technology to increase engagement in large problem solving situations. To gauge retention, he additionally utilized sketches, whereby students were briefly exposed to a situation, then would be required to summarize it in a sketch. These simple sketches were collect and graded by hand, then returned and further iterated upon throughout the quarter. Online Learning Tools for Just-in-Time Teaching Both the synchronous and asynchronous technologies discussed previously can enhance the justin-time (JIT) teaching approach, combining virtual and real classrooms to hone topics of instruction. A study at University of New York, Pantaleev et al. examined a JIT learning environment with Computer Science and Physics students, spanning introductory and advanced topics. The authors utilized a quiz placed on an online learning system, which covered topics in the textbook. These quizzes were due shortly before each class, giving authors the opportunity to review the quiz grades and student feedback. The lecture was modified to focus on areas of poor understanding and foster a more complete discussion on course material. Students responded positively, reporting more interest in class discussions and feeling more confident in the course material. Exam performance was also positively increased compared to traditional teaching methods. Das utilizes a similar style of JIT teaching, but created modules for students to review on Blackboard. During each module, a series of quizzes are taken by the student to build their understanding and confidence on the topic, in this case a structural analysis course. The multiple choice quizzes provide feedback instantaneously to the student and the results are available to the instructor to utilize lecture periods as an opportunity for discussion on the material. A team of educators at Michigan State University developed a system of JIT teaching that allowed for more in-depth student feedback to be rapidly analyzed. Faced with large introductory Biology courses, the instructors decided to utilize feature-based lexical analysis to automatically gauge free-response questions from quizzes submitted hours before each class began. This program allowed much greater flexibility in question type and student response when compared to multiple choice, while generating feedback reports for the instructors to rapidly process the massive amount of text delivered in each quiz. The instructors were able to adjust their traditional lectures, group guided discussion and in class clicker exercises for each classroom based on their quiz feedback. Instructors saw increased student performance in those who chose to participate, and were better able to gauge student progress on topics week to week. Another benefit was that the instructors felt more confident in their lectures and activities. Motivation for Use of Online Learning Tools in Current Course Prior educational research has demonstrated