Description

This learning kit includes a set of animated experiment sheet of enterprise computing for practical and guided exercises, videos on programming skills and an electronic log-book "iLog" to establish a user-friendly sharing environment for students as it has different sharing tools, including, emails, forum, blogs, Facebook, etc. 

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Learning Kit

In order to evaluate impact of the proposed methodology on teaching and learning, questionnaires with 5-point Likert scale were designed to collect feedback from participants. Measurements were firstly defined, followed by questionnaires formulation. The questionnaires were first trial with selected project students and research students before carrying out the evaluation. Apart from questionnaires, the learning performance of students in understand ing computing knowl edge in 2013 was collected and compared with students who did not use the learning kit in 2012.

In this project, two pilot studies were conducted. Pilot study I aims to investigate the feasibility of using "iLog", an electronic log-book in LEARN@POLYU, to facilitate students to share their learning journey with lecturers. A focus group of six final year students in engineering discipline were invited to use the "iLog" in their subject to record and share their learning journey with their lecturer. The duration of the pilot study I was eight months. Pilot study II focuses on evaluating students' understanding in enterprise computing and systems. Feedbacks from students about the content and the use of the animated experiment sheet and multi-media in their leaming processes and the use of forum to share knowledge are collected. Pilot study II was trial implemented to a class with 22 undergraduate students. Students were required to take a subject named ISE 2001 " Introduction to Enterprise Computing" in their first year. The duration of pilot study II was four months.

In pilot study I, six questionnaires about the feedbacks of students using "iLog" were collected . Over 80% of the respondents agreed that "iLog" can help them to understand the content of their finial year project (FYP) interim report and provide them an alternative to share their FYP progress while others remain neutra l. All respondents agreed that "iLog" allow them to share their progress of learnin g and provide an appropriate guide for their report writing . Over 30% of respondents strongly agreed that they can let their supervisor to know their difficulties in learn ing through "iLog" while the rest of respondents remained neutral. Around 70% of the respondents agreed that they can make use "iLog" for consultation while around 30% of them did not agree with this. In terms of receiving feedback of the progress, 50% of the respondents agreed that "iLog" is capable of doing this. Around 30% of them remained neutral and 16% of them did not agree with this. Over 60% of the respondents agreed that "iLog" is a useful tool to record and share their learning progress and they will encourage other students to use "iLog" during their learning journey while 30% of them remained neutral. In short, most of the respondents agreed that "iLog" can facilitate them to share their learning progress with lectures. Some of them did not agree that "iLog" can be used for consultation and collecting feedback. It may due to the reason that some students prefer to have face to face communication with lecturers in order to obta in correct information or new projects 'directions through dialogue. In pilot study II, 22 questionnaires were distributed and around 64% of students responded the survey. Over 60% respondents agreed the statements that "I can use video for understanding better about the content of the subject", "Video can creates more interest for the lab experiment" and "Forum let me know other student's point of view of the topic" while around 30% of respondents remained neutral and less than 10% did not agree with them. Over 70% of respondents agreed that video help them to catch up the content even they may lag behind while around 20% of them remained neutral and less than 10% did not agree with this. Around 60% of respondents agreed the statements that "Video can motivate me to learn and explore the content individually" and "I will encourage other students to use video for learning computing skills." while the rest of respondents remained neutral. Around 40-50% respondents agreed that forum can make them search information proactively through searching relative information online, help develop their critical thinking, can facilitate them to collaboratively learn with other students and they will encourage other students to use forum during their learning journey. Around 30% -50% of them remained neutral and less than 20% of them did not agree with them.

To sum up, more than half of responde nts agreed that video is useful for them to learn computing skills and less than 8% did not agree with this. Near half of respondents agreed forum can facilitate them to conduct information searching, critical thinking and collaboratively learning while less than 22% of them did not agree with this. It concludes that video and forum can facilitate students to learn practical computing skills. The learning performance of students who took the subject ISE 2001 in 2012 and 2013 was collected and compared. The average mark of comp uting skill in 2012 is 70 while that in 2013 was 69. However, it is noted that the highest and mode score in 2013 is 80 while in 2012 is 70. 8% of students in 2012 obtained 80 marks or above while around 50% of students in 2013 got 80 marks or above. Although the overall learning performance of students in 2013 is bit lower than that in 2012, the learning kit can help some students to acquire better performance in practical computing skills.

Recommendations

This project attempted to establish "iLog", an electronic log-book in LEARN@POLYU and foster an environment for stud ents to share their learning progress with lecturer. The pilot study I indicated that "iLog" not only provides a guide for students to learn, it is also a useful tool for students to record and share their learning journey. "iLog" can be furthered applied to the subject which mainly is continuous assessment so as to facilitate lecturer to keep track of and monitor students' progresses in a systematic way. Apart from "iLog", forum was used in this project to enhance knowledge sharing capability. From the result of pilot study II, near half of respondents agreed forum can facilitate them to conduct information searching, critical thinking and collaboratively learning. This project also designed and developed a learning kit with animated experiment sheet and videos for active learning on practical computing and programing skills. More than half of respondents agreed that video is useful for them to practical skills. It can conclude that both video and forum can facilitate students to conduct active learning on practical skills.

Several recommendations on applying the deli verab les and adopting the practice are shown. With the developed learning kit, this project attempts to provide benefits to ISE and Faculty of Engineering by paving the way for active learning or alternative teaching method. This project introduced some com ponent of active learning in Year 1 subject so as to pave the path for the student to have higher order thinking and cultivate the student to take the responsibility of learning rather than follow spoon-feeding mode of teaching and learning in high school. In case active learning can be adopted by ISE, other learning method such as blended learning and authentic learning can be implemented in next proposal. This project also enhanced the interaction between student-faculty and student and student. "iLog" can be used as a channel to collect students' learning experience (e.g. difficulties, responses or feedback). It can help academic staff to plan and organize the subjects with proper support in future. This project also generated template of animated experiment sheet for related subjects in ISE or Faculty of Engineering. By using digital media and animated content, students' interest in active learning can be enhanced. If the animated experiment sheet is welcomed by students, the template can roll out to other subjects with experiment or self-learning module.