2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Over the course of a seven-year study, our team created and disseminated several Low-Cost Desktop Learning Modules (LCDLMs) used to teach college students difficult engineering principles. The goal of this project is not only to elevate students' understanding of engineering concepts by learning in a hands-on manner, lowering the associated cognitive load, but to allow them an opportunity to work in interactive groups. This approach is inspired by Social Cognitive Theory (Author, 2011), which posits learning is a social process, and thus complex ideas are learned best collaboratively. LCDLMs are thus meant to help students visualize the concepts to be learned and create an environment where students can make observations and test hypotheses together, sharing and evolving their understanding through their differing perspectives. Students are asked to participate in pre- and posttests to assess learning of the associated concepts, and a survey to gauge their motivation inspired by using the LCDLMs.

Now that the project has been running for several years, and data have been collected in several classrooms at universities across the country, it is worth examining whether instructors have embraced this approach to enhance their own learning strategies as well as for us to assess student learning within the classroom. The LCDLMs were disseminated to instructors who agreed to participate via a “Hub and Spoke” model, where workshops were held in different regions at various “hubs” across the US to instruct professors on appropriate uses of LCDLMs. Feedback was gained through post-implementation forms with written responses submitted semesterly. The intent is to remove any barriers instructors may have in implementing LCDLMs effectively, such as lack of funds, poor technical support, insufficient how-to information, as well as to include their suggestions about more effective strategies for using the LCDLMs and collecting test scores and survey information from their students.

In the past year, greater attempts have been made to communicate with participating instructors throughout the school year. Instructors have asked that the pre- and posttest results from the LCDLM activities be shared with them outside of workshops, not only to support the validity of use of the LCDLMs, but so the activities can be incorporated into their grade books. Additionally, we have compiled a list of “best practices” from both the researchers working on the project and the participants in the study to implement the LCDLMs more efficiently. To assess the effectiveness of this new initiative, we have called participants in for interviews to receive their feedback on the best practices and learn about their implementation process in greater detail, to formulate new hypotheses and identify misconceptions and misunderstandings. We have also gone over all the post-implementation forms reporting participant implementation strategies since the release of our best practices document in August 2023 and comparing said strategies to class performance.

Finally, new LCDLMs are under development to incorporate additional engineering topics not yet covered by the current set. A glucose analyzer LCDLM is being produced, tested, and prepared for implementation, while a recently developed fluidized bed will be used for a third time in the classroom and recent work includes use of a gel-immobilized enzyme. Results from implementations will be analyzed based on pre- and post-tests and motivational surveys.