2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

While today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, their ubiquitous use of electronic devices does not necessarily align well with having the computing and/or programming skills of past generations. Specifically, spreadsheet skills are transferable across science and engineering topics, especially lab courses, as well as for financial and budgeting activities in personal or professional applications. Spreadsheets conveniently use simple functions and formulas to calculate sums, averages, and other statistics quickly in desktop, web, and mobile formats, including Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. Traditionally, spreadsheet skills were taught by demonstration by an expert in person, but now, dozens of spreadsheet influencers have significant followings on video platforms like YouTube. However, the acquiring of spreadsheet skills is sped up by educational best practices, such as formative and summative assessments. In this paper, a unique set of activities provides students opportunities to demonstrate basic and more advanced spreadsheet skills. Spreadsheet activities include in-class exercises, auto-graded exercises in an interactive textbook, and personalized spreadsheet quizzes. In-class activities incorporate a personalized or randomized component, so each student works to complete their task while the instructor serves as an in-person coach. Outside-of-class activities leverage tools in an interactive textbook from zyBooks – a Wiley brand. Students practice spreadsheet formula writing and outputs using unlimited attempts on auto-graded, randomized problems in the interactive textbook. Finally, individualized, in-person, and proctored assessments are demonstrated. Each student selects their name from a drop down to generate their unique spreadsheet for the quiz. Leveraging Microsoft’s OneDrive, Excel, and Teams, students work can be captured in real time. The grading of the assessments is done quickly using formulas with tolerances. Overall, spreadsheet skills are commonly used to solve problems from creating the latest products and processes to tracking finances. The tools detailed here provide an opportunity to encourage learning and document skills development.