Computer-based and screencasts approach in the signal processing basics electrical engineering course: does blended-learning work to motivate students?

Preparing electrical engineering students to take more control of their studies and to become more self-regulated learners has been the drive to re-design the Signal Processing Basics course. With the increasing growth in the number of students the electrical engineering faculty staff is integrating computer-based learning tools and blended learning approaches into the teaching practices. The educational benefits of the use of computer-based and blended methods is that teachers’ working load is reduced and gain quickly an overview if students’ achievements. Likewise, students get individual feedback on progress, can identify lacunas in prior knowledge, and self-study time is maximized. The objective of this study is to revise the effects of computer-based education on first-year electrical engineering students, and to present the design of an instructional technology model suitable for engineering education. This experience is based on a computer-based and screencast approach used in this freshman Signal Processing Basics course to motivate electrical engineering students to assess own knowledge and skills. The rationale behind is that through continuous online formative feedback on content progress students can make choices on the topics they still need to work on before taking the exam. The instructional design of the Signal Processing Basics course consists of lectures and instructions supported by computer education in the form of weekly online multiple-choice or randomize practice quizzes in a moodle platform, Oncourse, and online feedback and tutorials. In addition, screencasts are provided as a short video-clip summary of a basic building block or a small set of fundamental topics after each chapter with an outline of the main concepts addressed in the weekly lectures. Despite the educational value of this blended-learning approach students’ pass rates in this first experiment are slightly higher than in Annual International Conference on Engineering Education & Teaching 6-9 June 2016, Athens, Greece: Abstract Book 25 previous years, although students’ perceptions on the educational approach is positive. We evaluated this classroom experiment by comparing the pass rates and the students’ questionnaires. We compared the pass rate of the previous years with this last academic year. Results of this first experiment indicate a slightly increase in pass rate. Reasons for this may be encountered in students’ motivation to take and practice the content voluntary through the online quizzes is low as the quizzes are not part of the final score. Despite the results, students’ questionnaire on the computer-based learning tool Oncourse is very positive as students mention to gain sufficient feedback on progress that helps to understand and apply better the content learned in the lectures and instructions.