2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Motivating Students to Engage, Collaborate, and Persist with Classroom Podcast Creation

Presented at Innovative Pedagogical Strategies I

Research shows that college students generally rate the learning environment and perceived outcomes of courses delivered in person higher than those of an equivalent version delivered online. Without a deliberate pedagogical transformation of the material for remote delivery, online courses are often less engaging and effective due to a lack of social interaction and a more passive learning environment. Despite these barriers, the number of students taking online classes is increasing due to the flexibility, affordability, accessibility, and personalization that online learning offers. In light of these factors, an ongoing challenge for educators is to develop and employ innovative pedagogies to address the impediments to learning in an online environment. This proceeding describes the motivational impact on students from participating in a semester-long asynchronous project to create a nature-inspired and entrepreneurially minded podcast in an online Engineering Technology course. The project's duration was intentionally an entire semester to encourage students to remain engaged in the overall course content. Thematic analysis of student reflections indicates that participants were motivated in areas corresponding to Alderfer’s proposed categories of basic human needs: existence, relatedness, and growth. The results are presented and discussed concerning the motivational framework. Additionally, podcast analytics are presented to support the estimated high impact and geographic reach of the project. While the data in this report was created in a course within the Engineering Technology discipline, the opportunity to implement this project in any field of study is possible. The podcast project was able to overcome the motivational challenges often reported with online courses, engage students in the learning process, and help them to persist in the course.

Authors

Dr. Thomas Lucas Purdue University [biography]

Dr. Lucas' primary goal as a professor is to engage with students in the classroom and inspire them to develop their passion, understanding, and appreciation for STEM-based research and industry roles. This is accomplished by providing well-crafted and innovative learning experiences in engineering technology courses and through extracurricular outreach. His research background is in 3D (out-of-plane) micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor and actuator design. His current teaching load primarily consists of courses related to advanced embedded digital systems, IoT, and smart devices.
Bhavana Kotla http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5163-7664 The Ohio State University [biography]

Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Engineering Education, College of Engineering, The Ohio State University
Dr. Katey Shirey http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1782-6493 EduKatey [biography]

As the founder of eduKatey, Dr. Katey Shirey supports science and math educators worldwide to bridge their content areas and bring engineering design and creativity to their students. Dr. Shirey earned her BA in physics, BA in studio arts, and MT in secondary science education at the University of Virginia, followed by her PhD in science teaching, learning, policy, and leadership at the University of Maryland. Building on her background in physics, sculpture, art history, and high-school physics teaching, Dr. Shirey is passionate about using integrative-STEAM education to reach more students, engaging students in real-world explorations using science and math content, and helping teachers and students to grapple with complex problems in novel ways.
Dr. Lisa Bosman Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Dr. Bosman holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering. Her engineering education research interests include entrepreneurially minded learning, energy education, interdisciplinary education, and faculty professional development.

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