Using Technology for Joyful Learning

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Moderator: Kirsten Helmer, UMass Amherst

Standing TALL: Using Technological Advances to Drive the Passion for Lifelong Learning during Challenging Times

Ramakrishnan Sundaram, Gannon University

The engineering programs at universities across the world are constantly adapting to the rapidly changing landscape of engineering technology as well as the needs of the global workforce. Engineering project-based learning experiences go a long way toward training each engineering student to become an active, intentional, and goal-oriented learner. This proposal discusses the use of engineering laboratory and project activities for the students in undergraduate engineering degree programs confronted by the health and economic crises of recent times. Specifically, the adoption of cost-effective, and hands-on laboratory and project-based experiences in courses on applied artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet-of-Things (IoT) benefit the introduction, reinforcement, and retention of basic and advanced concepts in engineering disciplines.

In the course on applied AI, the student will rely on a background in digital signal and image processing, artificial neural networks, and programming skills in C/C++/Python to design physical systems. The student will be a junior or senior in the program. In the course on IoT, the student is expected to possess basic knowledge of electrical circuits and electronics, as well as programming skills in the higher level languages such as C/C++. The student will be at the sophomore level in the program. The laboratory activities in this course are based on (a) the Arduino micro-controller device (b) the ESP WiFi device. Students will program the devices to (a) measure and record sensor data (b) communicate the data from the client to the server. The laboratory experiments and course projects require inexpensive and portable equipment.

Video Games for STEM Education

Neelam Soundarajan, The Ohio State University

Video games have been effectively used in numerous domains from the military to medical education to a wide range of small and large businesses. But, with few exceptions, they are not used in college (or high school) STEM courses. That is unfortunate since today's students are "digital natives" --as Marc Prensky puts it-- who are likely to enthusiastically engage with well-designed video games. Indeed, games for STEM courses provide superior capabilities compared with textbooks and classroom lectures in helping students develop deep understanding. Thus, for example, a game based on billiards could be used to help students "absorb" Newton's Laws of Motion, a topic, as work on "concept inventories" shows, challenges students from even elite institutions.

The inclusion of a range of possible ways for players to interact with the game, and the ability to move through the game at different rates should help cater to individual students' learning styles. And, the inclusion of well-chosen "avatars" that students can adopt will enable students of different backgrounds to engage effectively with the games. In my presentation, I will briefly present the prototype design for such a game.

Impacts of Instructional Methods on Approaches and Perceptions of College Students towards Mathematical Creativity

Bartu Bingol, University of Massachusetts Amherst

There has been a notable number of respectable studies in mathematical creativity and its promotion in education. Most of the ideas and studies in the area have been conducted with K-12 pupils. Nonetheless, when it comes to mathematics education in college, there is not a wide variety of studies. One can observe that the college-level mathematics content is completely different from the K-12 level when it comes to its extent, the level of difficulty and complexity, and presentation. These differences, which may cause more inaccessibility of the content, often yield to monotone lecture-based teaching styles. This style limits creative thinking in students as it requires no additional deep thinking and work. To promote creativity in math-related classes and teaching and to observe the impacts of instructional methods towards the improvement in mathematical creativity, the author structured a game/activity-based First-Year Seminar course at a big R1 university in the United States, where the participants are College of Natural Sciences students enrolled in the class. The participants filled out a self-assessment tool before and after the course regarding their attitude towards math and mathematical creativity. Moreover, the students provided response papers regarding their thoughts for the activity of each week. Lastly, 20-min interviews will be conducted with a group of volunteered participants. With the quantitive data collected from the self-assesment tool, it is expected to observe an improvement in their attitude towards mathematics. Furthermore, with the qualitative data collected from the response papers and the interviews, it is expected to observe more comprehensive responses which demonstrate creative thinking in math.