2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Our University has long offered an intermediate course in MATLAB programming for engineering majors as one option to satisfy the computer science requirement of their degree. The majority of students are enrolled in the least computationally focused majors in Engineering, such as Civil, Chemical, and Aeronautical Engineering. We will report on a pilot program to transition the online version of this course to a self-paced/mastery learning mode of instruction. The course is delivered in a synchronous online format, with a “flipped” structure. Recorded lectures are posted in the learning management system, while class meetings are focused on review of concepts, presentation of example problems, and one-on-one help sessions between students and the instructor/teaching assistants. The latter are facilitated by Zoom breakout rooms. The Top Hat platform is used to engage students in the group review session.

In lieu of the traditional two mid-terms plus final exam, there are six unit exams, with course grades determined primarily by the number of units completed. Students must re-take the exam if they fail to achieve the minimum passing score of 80 %. A minimum of three of the six units must be completed at the 80 % level to pass the course, while all units must be completed at the 90 % level for an A grade.

Each unit has two types of assignments: programming exercises, which are short problems, typically requiring less than 10 lines of code; and application assignments, which require writing longer, more complex programs. The exercises are implemented in the MATLAB Grader platform from Mathworks, an auto-grading system that facilitates mastery learning, since the technology allows students to submit repeatedly until they pass the exercises. Students are required to complete all exercises in a unit at the 90 % level before taking the exam. A minimum score of 80 % on the application assignment is required to pass the unit; students earning less than 80 % are required to revise and re-submit the assignment.

Microsoft’s Azure Labs remote desktop environment is the vehicle for delivering exams. We will discuss our experience with this platform, how it provides a degree of security, its limitations and potential drawbacks and how we have addressed them.

The self-paced format creates the possibility of less disciplined students – or those for whom the course is a lower priority - falling behind. We will discuss our experience with this problem and how we have tried to address it. Students’ attitudes about the self-paced/mastery approach have been explored through anonymous surveys; we will discuss what they regard as the positive and negative aspects of the course structure, and how the perceived deficiencies can be addressed in future offerings.