Will Schleter presented two papers at the First Year Engineering Experience (FYEE) conference, August 7-8, at Texas A&M University.
One paper was “Effectively Using Online Homework,” and presented some of the recent enhancement to our online homework system and an assessment of their effectiveness. Some of the enhancements discussed included linking to previous semesters of the discussion board, requiring units to be input with the answer, having an intermediate value check, and checking for common mistakes. Our favorite student feedback was “Putting in units sucks, but I feel like it helps students figure out what they are actually talking about.”
The other paper was “Web Based Project Reports,” and discussed the advantages of having a web based form for project reports, where students fill in boxes for various parts of the reports. The advantages are that it provides for more efficient and meaningful grading by having a side-by-side grading rubric, and it enables an easy compilation of all the reports. The disadvantages are that it may do too much for the student, and can constrain creativity.
Read these papers as well as many others on engineering education.