Informatics Publishing Limited

S. Saravana Perumaal ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai - 625015, Tamil Nadu, IN

Abstract

Thinking and learning are irresistible for human but they differ on individual's cognitive abilities. Engineering education demands active and experiential learning for experiencing demonstrable technical and professional skills. The practice of active learning strategies is gaining momentum in Indian engineering education. Engaging today's learners i.e. Millennial learners, in learning activities, is a challenging task for a teacher in a constrained physical learning environment. The responsibility of the teacher is to create an effective learning environment to promote students' intended learning. The learning environment is characterized by the learners, learning activities and learning outcomes. This paper presents a different kind of an experience gained in creating an effective learning environment in Engineering Graphics course for the first year (freshman) engineering students for improving their spatial visualization. This also portrays a variety of blended learning activities employed in building confidence amongst students. The learning strategies have been developed to overcome the challenges so as to create an effective learning environment among students. While employing such learning approaches, the factors like engaging students, using appropriate strategies, balancing the content length with the level of learning, managing time and infrastructure, and measuring the of success of activity should be considered. These well-structured activities are executed with the appropriate supportive learning resources. The impact of blended teaching strategies and their sequence on improving students' learning in this course has also been assessed through structured feedback and informal interactions. The results demonstrate a significant improvement in students' learning experience through a set of active learning strategies.

Keywords

Learning Environment, Active Learning, Engineering Graphics, Students’ Learning, Paper Modelling, TAPPS, Note Check.

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S. J. Thiruvengadam ¹, S. Baskar ¹, S. Saravana Perumaal ², C. Jeyamala ³, D. Anitha ³, R. Rajan Prakash ³

Affiliations
1 Professor, Academic Process Team, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, IN
2 Associate Professor, Academic Process Team, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, IN
3 Assistant Professor, Academic Process Team, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, IN

Abstract

The CDIO INITIATIVE is an innovative educational framework that has been followed in many world-class educational institutions in USA, Europe and Asian countries for producing the next generation of engineers. It provides students with an education in the context of Conceiving — Designing — Implementing — Operating (CDIO) real-world systems and products. Thiagarajar College of Engineering (TCE), Madurai is one among those institutions following the CDIO framework for all undergraduate engineering programmes since the academic year 2018-19. Though there are training programs for selective faculty members, there had been no intensive hands - on training to all the faculty members. It has been felt from the formal meetings and informal discussions that faculty members needed more clarity and training on the CDIO framework. This has led to the conduct of training workshops online by the TCE academic process team for the faculty members of the institution (n=205), in three batches. Two quizzes have been conducted and feedback has been collected at the end of the workshop for each batch. This research paper analyses the outcome of these workshops measured through the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) exhibited in the assessment activities and feedback. It has been observed that the training workshop satisfies the expectations of the participants with a Satisfaction Index of 0.924. Recommendations have been proposed for interpreting the outcomes of such training workshops to enhance faculty competence through such workshops by addressing the necessary gaps in the forthcoming training workshops.

Keywords

CDIO, Faculty Development Programs, Workshops, Assessments, Satisfaction.

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