Journal of Engineering Education Transformations

Journal of Engineering Education Transformations

Year: 2020, Volume: 34, Issue: 1, Pages: 41-51

Original Article

A Blended Approach for Teaching Laboratory Course: Internet Technology

Abstract

Teaching laboratory courses is a challenging task as compared to teaching theory courses. From a teacher's perspective, it is a challenging task because he must be able to engage student actively for two hours. From a student perspective, it is challenging because students need to work themselves on machines or other equipment's to find out the solution which actually works for a particular problem. Four laboratory courses, students must be able to apply their past theory knowledge and skills for figuring out desired solution. So the lab course is beyond theory course.But as a hand on experience is necessary for understanding of the associated theory concepts, it is inevitable. Also in conventional mode of teaching laboratory course where experiment list is predefined by the instructor, the student is passively involved in experimental work. This paper reveals how two pedagogic paradigms, namely Project Based Learning and Collaborative Learning are applied to the Internet Technology Laboratory course and shows how a student attains greater course outcomes than conventional methods used for teaching laboratory course. Project based learning gives better understanding of the concept because student learns by self-exploring and actually doing. On the other hand, in collaborative learning students work collectively in groups to deduce an answer to common problems.The Internet, Technology Laboratory course is bas i c al ly des igned for unders t anding the terminologies related to internet protocols at application, routing and transport layers. It is challenging task to motivate students to design and develop all such applications. Hence, collaborative approach has been applied for enhancing the knowledge of the students related to this course by developing application layer protocols in a group. Also the commercial project design technique is used to solve real time problems of customers by designing websites. The student showed keen interest in understanding the customer needs and design the website for them. The analysis shows that there is an average increase of 15% to 20 % in course outcome attainment when this blended approach is applied.

References

  • Thomas, J. W. & Mergendoller, J. R.,� Managing project-based learning: Principles from the field�, Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, 2000.
  • Scaffa, M. E., & Wooster, D. M.,�Effects of problem-based learning on clinical reasoning in occupational therapy�, American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 58(3), 333-336,2004.
  • Schneider, R.M., Krajcik, J., Marx, R. W., & Soloway, �Performance of students in project based science classrooms� on a national measure of science achievement, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(5), 410-422.
  • - [4] Baker, M. J ., Bernard, F.X. & Dumez F�roc,�Integrating computer supported collaborative learning into the classroom: the anatomy of a failure�, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 28, 161-76, 2012.
  • Srinivas, H., �What is Collaborative Learning? �, The Global Development Research Center, Kobe; Japan . Retrieved 5 Nov 2011
  • Dillenbourg P, �What do you mean by collaborative learning? Collaborative learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches�, Oxford, UK: Elsevier Publishing,1999 -
  • Roselli, N.D., �Collaborative learning: Theoretical foundations and applicable strategies to university�, Journal of Educational Psychology, 2016.
  • Panitz, T., �Collaborative versus cooperative learning a comparison of the two concepts which Hill help us understand the underlying nature of interactive learning�, Cooperative Learning and College Teaching, 1997.
  • Dillenbourg, P., Baker, M., Blaye, A., & O�Malley, C.,�The Evolution of Research on Collaborative Learning�,Learning in Humans and Machines, Towards an Interdisciplinary Learning Science (pp. 189-211). London: Pergamon,1996.
  • Varsha T Lokare, Prakash M Jadhav," Course Outcomes Attainment for Data Structure Course Using Direct and Indirect Methods", Journal of Engineering Education Transformations,2016.
  • Varsha T Lokare, Prakash M Jadhav, " A Holistic Approach for Teaching Data Structure Course in the department of Information Technology", Journal of Engineering Education Transformations,2017.

DON'T MISS OUT!

Subscribe now for latest articles and news.