A Guide to Student-active Online Learning in Engineering

Modeling, Identification and Control, Vol. 41, No. 2, 2020, pp. 91–107, ISSN 1890–1328

A Guide to Student-active Online Learning inEngineering

Erik Kyrkjebø

Department of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, Faculty of Engineering and Science,Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Sogndal, Norway. E-mail: erik.kyrkjebo at hvl.no

Abstract

Online learning in higher education is becoming increasingly common as the possibilities of the availabledigital infrastructure expand. A recent emergent driver for online learning is the closing of universities tolimit the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Many educators are now faced with the need to maketheir teaching digital, though they have little or no experience with online teaching methods. In such asituation, learning outcomes may come second to what can be readily implemented by available digitalresources. In this paper, a design for student-active online learning in engineering is proposed as a guideto help take account of learning objectives first, and the digital tools and resources necessary to achievethose objectives second. In addition, the paper emphasises the social dimension of online learning, andrecommends that explicit actions should be taken to increase positive social relations between students inan online course to be able to succeed with student-active learning methods. In the paper, a clear path isfollowed from objectives to learning activities, and then to assessments and evaluations, and appropriatedigital tools and resources are suggested to support activities and evaluations in an online course. Onlinecourses in engineering are targeted in particular, and challenges that arise from common activities suchas problem solving and practical work in an online engineering course are addressed. The proposed guideemphasises usability to ensure that it can be used even by inexperienced digital educators, and an exampleon how the guide can be applied to design an online course in mobile robotics is given. The proposedguide aims to help shift online learning in engineering from traditionally teacher-active lectures to morestudent-active learning activities.

Keywords: Online learning, Engineering, Social processes, Student-active, Mobile Robotics

1 Introduction

Many institutions in higher education worldwide aretransforming their classes into online courses. Thistransformation is partly due to their need to be com-petitive as educational institutions, but also to makeclasses more accessible to a growing and more diversegroup of students (Keengwe and Kidd, 2010). A re-cent emergent driver for online learning is the closingof universities to limit the spread of the coronavirus(COVID-19). Online teaching is often seen as moreeffective in teaching large student groups and to of-

fer new possibilities in terms of digital pedagogy, andsome studies also report that students prefer onlinecourses to traditional classroom learning (Hannay andNewvine, 2006). Still, it is important to ensure thatthe course’s learning objectives are not sacrificed onthe altar of digital enthusiasm, and that we considerlearning objectives and activities first, and then thedigital tools and resources that can help us implementthose activities second.

The learning retention of different learning strategieshave been studied extensively for the last 80 years. The

doi:10.4173/mic.2020.2.5 c© 2020 Norwegian Society of Automatic Control

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Modeling, Identification and Control

popular learning pyramid1 (origin unknown) is familiarto many educators in higher education, and illustratesthe retention rates of different learning strategies rang-ing from lecturing (5%), reading (10%), audiovisual(20%), demonstration (30%), group discussion (50%),practising (75%), and teaching others/using immedi-ately (90%). The first version of the pyramid is oftenwrongly attributed to the text Audio-visual Methodsin Teaching by Edgar Dale in 1954 (Dale, 1954), butmany versions of the pyramid exist – often with dif-ferent percentages for the different levels. In Letrud(2012) and Lalley and Miller (2007), systematic re-buttals of the learning pyramid are presented, ques-tioning the origin and research behind the model, andthe methodology that had to be used to derive such amodel. Furthermore, the NTL Institute in the US, oneof the pyramid’s most active proponents, even claimsthat the original data supporting the learning pyramidhave been lost.

In Lalley and Miller (2007), the learning pyramid’sorigin is instead suggested to be a synthesis of two sep-arate sources. One is from the works of E. Dale andhis ”cone of experience” from 1949 (in the first editionof the text in Dale (1954)) as a model of learning ex-perience (without percentages), and the other sourceis an old retention chart with rates associated withreading, seeing, hearing, and doing originating frombefore 1940. Note that the cone of experience fromDale is referred to as a continuum of methods in Lalleyand Miller (2007) rather than as a hierarchy. Accord-ing to Lalley and Miller (2007), no credible researchcould be found to support the learning pyramid itself,but research supporting the importance of each of themethods in the different pyramid levels was found – al-though no method consistently performed better thanthe others in different contexts. The conclusion of Lal-ley and Miller (2007) was rather on the importanceof the teacher as a knowledgeable decision maker inchoosing appropriate teaching methods.

Student-active learning, with more engagement fromstudents in the learning process, has been shown to bebeneficial for learning, despite the lack of evidence sup-porting the learning pyramid itself. A meta analysis of225 studies of examination scores or fail rates, usingactive learning compared with traditional lecturing re-ported in Freeman et al. (2014), found that average ex-amination scores increased by about 6%, and fail ratesdecreased by 55%. Students in classes with traditionallecturing were 1.5 times more likely to fail than werestudents in classes with active learning. The resultswere found to hold across undergraduate STEM (sci-ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disci-plines and to be robust to variations in active learning

1https://tinyurl.com/ntl-learningpyramid

methods, but to increase scores more on active con-cept inventories than on course examinations. Activelearning was also found to be effective for all class sizesstudied, but to be more effective in small (n ≤ 50)classes. However, Freeman et al. (2014) also notes thatall studies included teachers who volunteered to useactive learning methods, and that effect sizes could beless if active learning approaches were mandatory forall teaching activities and teachers. Wieman (2014)commented on the findings of Freeman et al. (2014) toclaim that it is becoming increasingly clear that “ac-tive learning methods achieve better educational out-comes”. Wieman also suggests that good active learn-ing tasks simulate real-life problem solving, and thusrequire more subject expertise from the teacher thanlecturing does. This relationship between required ex-pertise and active learning methods could explain someof the effects of active learning on learning outcomesacross different STEM disciplines and levels of courses.

Biggs (1999) looks at how active learning is likely tostimulate more high-level cognitive engagement fromstudents – both for more academically oriented stu-dents and for less self-motivated non-academically ori-ented students. Biggs postulates that “Good teachingis about making most students use the higher cognitivelevel [sic] processes that the more academic studentsuse spontaneously” (Biggs, 1999). While academicstudents are likely to adopt a deep-level approach tolearning (learning the intentional content (Marton andSaljo, 1976)), the less academic students are likely touse a surface-level approach to learning (with a re-productive aim (Marton and Saljo, 1976)), unless themost favourable learning conditions are met – whichis active learning, according to Biggs (1999). Biggsalso postulates that education is about a conceptualchange in the students’ understanding, not just acqui-sition of information, and therefore that the meaningof a concept cannot be imposed or transmitted throughdirect instruction, but instead must be created throughstudents’ learning activities. Conceptual change maytake place when students work towards appropriateand well-known goals (objectives), feel the need to getto the goal, feel free to focus on their task and notwatch their backs, and can work collaboratively witheach other (and the teacher). To structure the processof conceptual changes in students, Biggs (1999) intro-duced the concept of “constructive alignment”, wherethe desired outcomes of the course directly specify thelearning objectives. These objectives in turn definewhat we should be teaching, how we should be teach-ing it, and how we can evaluate how well students havelearned it. A major point of Biggs (1999) is that thelearning activities and assessments should be designedto align with the objectives of the course, and that ac-

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Kyrkjebø, “A Guide to Student-active Online Learning in Engineering”

tivities should encourage students to engage more inhigher-level cognitive engagements, such as theorising,applying, relating, and explaining, than in describing,note-taking, or memorising.

The view that students should work collaborativelywith others, expressed in Biggs (1999), is very muchaligned with the views later presented by Johnsonand Johnson (2009), advocating the use of coopera-tive learning over individualistic or competitive learn-ing based on social interdependence theory. “Social in-terdependence exists when the outcomes of individualsare affected by their own and others’ actions” (Johnsonand Johnson, 2009). One of the major findings of John-son and Johnson (2009) is that groups perform betterif they have a positive interdependence – especially ifthere is a positive goal (and reward) interdependence.Since the interdependence can be defined along sev-eral axes such as common goals, common outcomes,interpersonal bonds, and communication, there is ev-idence that groups also developing their social inter-relations positively while working towards goals per-form better. Another finding of Johnson and John-son (2009) was that individual accountability withinthe group (where the performance of each individualmember is assessed) leads to higher achievements, andthat members of a group might reduce their contribu-tions if individual contributions are difficult to identify.Group size also affects individual accountability, whichtypically diminishes as groups grow large (Johnson andJohnson, 2009).

Online learning has been a topic of increasing inter-est over the past two decades. Goodyear (2002) de-fines online learning to mean “learning which involvesinteraction between people using Internet communi-cation technologies”, and regards “e-learning” and“networked learning” as synonyms for online learn-ing. Keengwe and Kidd (2010) also include “web-based training and instruction”, “distributed learn-ing”, “cyber learning”, and “virtual learning” in thegroup of synonyms, while other authors distinguish be-tween these concepts.

Online learning may be divided into synchronous andasynchronous learning activities. Synchronous learningactivities require participants (teacher and students, orstudents and other students) to be online simultane-ously for real-time lecturing, supervision, demonstra-tions, discussions, or the like. Asynchronous activitiesare, according to Goodyear (2002), interactions whereparticipants are allowed to take part in the interac-tion at different times, and encompass activities suchas watching recorded lectures or doing online simula-tions individually. Text-based discussions can eitherbe synchronous, where participants expect almost in-stant replies (chats), or asynchronous, where partici-

pants can wait longer for more elaborate replies (fo-rums, email).

Salmon (2002) introduced the “five-stage frameworkand e-tivities” for active online learning to motivateparticipants and to build learning through appropriateactivities. At stage 1, access and motivation, studentsgain access and are welcomed. At stage 2, online social-isation, students are interacting and building relation-ships. At stage 3, information exchange, participantsexchange information. At stage 4, knowledge construc-tion, the interaction is more collaborative. And atstage 5, development, students look for more bene-fits for them personally, and reflect on the learningprocess. The five-stage model of Salmon (2002) cor-responds well with the cooperative learning approachwith group processing described by Johnson and John-son (2009), where group participants reflect and makedecisions on which actions are helpful towards achiev-ing the group goals, and which actions are not. Thework of Salmon (2002) is also very well aligned withhow the learning process should be designed to be moreactive, proposed by Wieman (2014), building on the re-sults in Freeman et al. (2014).

Blended learning, or hybrid learning, is learning inwhich face-to-face learning is combined with onlinelearning, and can often encourage surface-level stu-dents, who are less self-regulated, to stay focused onthe course (Olapiriyakul and Scher, 2006). Anothermotivation for choosing a blended learning strategyis that students have reported feeling a greater senseof community in blended courses than in purely on-line courses. Studies presented in Olapiriyakul andScher (2006) also suggest that a majority of hybridlearning projects show improvements in student learn-ing. It is reported that student attendance in physicalclassroom sessions may go down in blended learningenvironments, and that the sense of community willhelp combat this effect. While Hannay and Newvine(2006) found that students preferred online learning –mainly because of better being able to balance learn-ing with other commitments – the authors also suggestthat there may be educational advantages to integrat-ing the best aspects of distance learning into traditionalcourses to build a hybrid learning environment.

Hampel (2006) looked at synchronous online teach-ing and how to adapt classroom teaching techniques toonline teaching, and how to devise new teaching activi-ties in an online environment. Hampel warns not to letall the new digital innovations in computer-mediatedcommunications (CMC) “lead us to the conclusion thatwe can now replicate in CMC what we do in the face-to-face classroom”. When teaching is done using onlinevideo systems, Hampel claims that the system can al-low for immediate responses from participants and for

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more authentic dialog than in asynchronous modes ofonline learning (but perhaps with less reflection). Butparticipants who are unfamiliar with the technology, orwho are participating in a poorly moderated session,can feel more left out than in a real-life classroom. Animportant point of Hampel is also that students whoare more familiar with hierarchical learning environ-ments, where direct instructions or lecturing are dom-inant learning methods, need to be encouraged to usethe more democratic and student-centred features thatare available in many online learning environments.Studies summarised in Keengwe and Kidd (2010), onbest practices in online learning, report that while tra-ditional learning environments are bound by the lo-cation and presence of participants, presented in realtime, often controlled by the teacher, and mostly lin-ear in teaching methods – online learning environmentscan be more unbound and dynamic environments, andoften employ a greater number of active learning tech-niques.

In this paper, a design for student-active onlinelearning in engineering is proposed to help digital edu-cators to formulate learning objectives before choosingthe digital tools to aid in the learning activities. Thepaper adopts the structure of conceptual alignmentof objectives, activities, and assessments from Biggs(1999) to propose a guide for choosing active learn-ing activities and corresponding methods of evaluationand assessment based on the learning objectives. Dig-ital tools that can support both the learning activitiesand the evaluation process are suggested. In additionto the dimensions of cognitive engagement and learningactivities found in Biggs (1999), the paper also empha-sise the social dimension of creating an online learningenvironment with positive social interdependence be-tween students based on the findings of Johnson andJohnson (2009), and as a prerequisite for active learn-ing to succeed, according to Salmon (2002). The pro-posed guide targets in particular active online learningof engineering skills – which often has a practical as-pect of learning to work on physical infrastructure – torecognise that not all activities can necessarily be doneonline in this field, and therefore may need a blendedlearning approach. The paper is concluded with an ex-ample where the guide is applied to design an onlinecourse on mobile robotics for engineering students.

A more detailed background on active learning ac-tivities is presented in Section 2, before the particularaspects of active learning in engineering are commentedon in Section 3. Section 4 proposes to view active on-line learning in three dimensions to make sure socialobjectives are included in the learning design, before aguide for active online learning of engineering is pre-sented in Section 5. The guide is applied to design an

online course in mobile robotics in Section 6, beforeconclusions are presented in Section 7.

2 Active learning

This section will elaborate on what the term activelearning can encompass. Later sections will presentwhat is considered to be particular challenges for de-signing student-active learning activities in online en-gineering courses.

In Freeman et al. (2014), active learning is definedas follows:

Active learning engages students in the pro-cess of learning through activities and/or dis-cussion in class, as opposed to passively listen-ing to an expert. It emphasises higher-orderthinking and often involves group work.

Traditional lecturing is described as “continuous expo-sition by the teacher” where student activity is “as-sumed to be limited to taking notes and/or asking oc-casional and unprompted questions of the instructor”(Freeman et al., 2014). In Wieman (2014), the gist ofactive learning methods lies in requiring students toactively process and apply information in a variety ofactivities such as answering questions, completing exer-cises, or discussing in groups, and where the teacher’srole is to design the activities and provide follow-upguidance. It is also suggested that good active learn-ing tasks simulate real-life problem solving.

In Lalley and Miller (2007), finding little evidenceto support the learning pyramid itself, the authors in-stead focused on what the available research on themethods identified in the learning pyramid could sayabout learning retention for each particular method. Indoing so, Lalley and Miller (2007) found the following:

• Lecturing, or direct instruction, emphasisesteacher direction to “assist student attainment oflesson objectives”. It is the most researched teach-ing strategy, the strategy that has improved stu-dent performance the most, it has been shown tohave a significant effect on retention, and it hasbeen found useful for students across grades, andfor students of low socioeconomic status (with typ-ically less background knowledge). However, Bayet al. in Lalley and Miller (2007) claim that whiledirect instruction could be more successful “for ba-sic skill instruction in reading and mathematics,such teaching may be less beneficial for science”.

• Reading and understanding the text have signifi-cant impact on students’ ability to remember whatthey have read, and there is a significant positiverelation between the number of structured reading

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lessons and students’ gains on reading comprehen-sion tests.

• Audiovisual materials can hardly be preciselydefined as a method, but can include pictures,graphs, sounds, videos, or other media. Few stud-ies on audiovisual methods address retention, butsome indicate that a visual experience can en-hance learning in learning-disabled children. Com-puter simulations or virtual reality have promiseto increase the possibility to practise new forms ofdiscovery-learning techniques.

• Demonstration involves a teacher performing alearning task while students observe, to exem-plify correct behaviour or use. Research on re-tention for this method is relatively sparse, butsome results indicate that demonstrations leadto increased retention – and similar retentionwhether students took turns observing each other,or whether students themselves performed thedemonstration following a teacher’s demonstra-tion. Similar retention rates could even be shownbetween hands-on learning in a laboratory anda lecture/demonstration combination (by Pigford(1974) in Lalley and Miller (2007)).

• Group discussions and cooperative learninghave been investigated in many studies and metaanalyses, and results indicate higher levels of stu-dent achievement when using cooperative (small-group) learning than when using competitive orindividualistic approaches (Johnson and Johnson,2009). Results showed that cooperative learningwith group processing (reflection and discussingon member contributions at the end of a session)is more effective than only cooperative learningalone (and much more effective than individualis-tic approaches).

• Practise by doing can let students work (individ-ually or in groups) to discover principles or rela-tionships to develop a personally meaningful un-derstanding of the concept (discovery learning),and studies have shown that students retainedmore information when concepts were introducedthrough a practical laboratory context followed bya lecture/reading than vice versa. Some studieshave shown that discovery learning (environmen-tal learning) can result in greater learning thanis possible from direct instruction (presentationallearning), but other studies have shown no differ-ence in retention rates. Overall, it is still an openquestion if discovery learning gives better reten-tion rates than does demonstration learning or di-rect instruction.

• Teaching others through peer tutoring has beenshown to improve achievement, but then it ofteninvolves reciprocal tutoring by taking turns beingthe tutor, and there is little research on the ef-fect of tutoring on the tutor rather than on theone being taught. Still, there are indications thatbeing a tutor leads to better retention for the stu-dents who tutored than for the students who didnot tutor.

The authors in Lalley and Miller (2007) were carefulnot to put the concepts above in a hierarchical struc-ture, nor to associate any retention rates with the dif-ferent concepts. The major conclusion was that allmethods are dependent on the context, and that teach-ers should take care to choose the teaching strategybest suited to the subject, to the students’ capabili-ties, and to the students’ skills. Most importantly, andas suggested by Dale (1954), the most successful teach-ing strategy would likely involve a variety of teachingmethods.

The body of research on learning as presented abovesuggests that student-active learning methods are bet-ter than teacher-active learning methods in many con-texts, but also that lecturing is a valid and effectiveteaching method in some contexts. The most impor-tant teaching strategy is that which exposes studentsto a variety of learning methods best suited to the par-ticular topic at hand. Next, the contexts engineeringeducators are faced with that should make us particu-larly interested in some of these student-active learningapproaches are presented.

3 Active learning of engineering

What distinguishes teaching engineering from teach-ing other subjects? And what are the most importantconsiderations that should be kept in mind when try-ing to teach engineering through active online learn-ing? To answer these questions, we should try to findan answer to what engineering is, but it could be easierto say what engineering is not, according to Goodhew(2014). In his book, Goodhew claims that engineer-ing education is not about teaching specific practicalskills, or about running code or machines, or aboutsigning off on blueprints or contracts. An engineeringeducation is “about the conceptual, planning and de-sign skills which should precede all these activities”.In a report from the National Academy of Engineer-ing (2008) (NAE), emphasis is put on how engineer-ing affects the real world through problem solving,rather than on how engineering is a mathematical andscience-based method of solving problems. Further-more, the skills of creativity, teamwork, and communi-cation are often neglected in characterising engineering,

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according to Goodhew (2014). In Pawley (2009), in-terviews with academic engineers concluded that threemajor concepts are closely attributed to the disciplineof engineering: mathematics and applied science, prob-lem solving, and making things. Furthermore, Pawley(2009) also refers to the NAE statements about engi-neering being “the application of science” and “designunder constraints” to encompass that engineering doesnot take place in an ideal world, but must adhere tothe constraints and disturbances of real life.

It is hard to find a definition of engineering that en-compasses all aspects of the discipline, but there aresome parts of the engineering education that should atleast be considered when designing active online learn-ing approaches to engineering:

• Theoretical work learning concepts and methodsthat form the basis of knowledge for all engineer-ing students. This theoretical work includes themathematical and scientific foundations of engi-neering.

• Practical work on exercises through calculations,on computers in simulations, in laboratories, or inreal life through experiments.

• Creative work in solving real-life problems orproposing new designs within limitations and con-straints.

• Teamwork through cooperation with other peo-ple and other competencies on projects.

• Communication of results, insights, and con-cepts to fellow students, examiners, and the gen-eral public.

This list is far from exhaustive, but rather is an il-lustration on the nature of work that students of engi-neering encounter during their studies. Examining theparts more in detail, and using the different methods oflearning from Lalley and Miller (2007) in Section 2, itis clear that an engineering education could include ac-tivities such as reading, lecturing, demonstrations,and practising – but probably could also include us-ing appropriate cooperative activities, such as groupdiscussions and students teaching others, to pro-mote both scientific and social skills when working ingroups. In fact, because of the problem-solving natureof engineering while adhering to external constraints,more emphasis should probably be placed on creativeactivities through teamwork and practise, than on one-way lecturing on theoretical concepts that are moreapplicable for learning purely theoretical and abstractconcepts.

4 Active online learning

“Online learning” is a term that encompasses a lot ofdifferent learning schemes, but with the commonalitythat the learning activities are done online over theinternet.

4.1 Three dimensions of learning

In the works of Biggs (1999, Fig. 1), the levels of en-gagement of students are shown for both deep-learningstudents and surface-level students ranging from pas-sive teaching methods (e.g., lectures) to the more activelearning methods (e.g., problem-based learning) – andwith both student groups benefiting from the more ac-tive learning approach. The active learning approachis also very much supported by the findings in Freemanet al. (2014) and by the recommendations in Wieman(2014), and by the literature review on components ofthe “learning pyramid” in Lalley and Miller (2007). InBiggs (1999), the social dimension of learning is alsotouched upon, where students who are free to focuson the task rather than watching their backs are morelikely to experience a conceptual change of understand-ing, and where Biggs also recommend working togetherin groups. However, this dimension is treated moreexplicitly in Johnson and Johnson (2009), where theachievement of the individual is found to be better ingroups where there is a strong positive social interde-pendence between members.

Figure 1: Three dimensions of learning

In this paper, I propose in Figure 1 to see the cog-nitive level of engagement, the passive/active learn-

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ing approach, and the social processes in the individ-ual/group as three dimensions of an active learningenvironment that should explicitly be considered whendesigning an online active learning strategy. In the firstdimension, the level of cognitive processes is inspiredby Biggs (1999), who looked at how the more activelearning methods stimulate higher cognitive-level pro-cesses in students. In the second dimension, some ofthe concepts from Dale (1954) and Lalley and Miller(2007) are adopted to describe different learning activ-ities employed in teaching. Note that these methodsare described from a student’s viewpoint, and thus thedescriptive term “lectures” is used to describe studentsattending lectures, while the active term “teaching” de-scribes students engaged in teaching others. Note alsothat the category of audiovisual material from Lalleyand Miller (2007) is omitted in this dimension, becausethis category is more of a tool than a teaching activity.The third dimension is the social processes of (online)learning, adopted from the results of Biggs (1999) andMarton and Saljo (1976) on deep learners (internallymotivated) and surface learners (externally motivated),and from the works of Johnson and Johnson (2009)on social interdependence. This dimension is also sup-ported by the five stages of online learning from Salmon(2002), where the activities of motivating and creatingsocial relations are emphasised as important factors forsuccessful online learning.

The three proposed dimensions of active learningshould be taken as a guide for designing an active learn-ing approach to online learning. In the cognitive di-mension, it is natural to expect internally motivatedstudents to employ almost all of these cognitive pro-cesses during a full course – or even during any givenlecture. The externally motivated students, who em-ploy a more surface-level learning approach, may beonly memorising and note-taking. The point of Biggs(1999) is that it is more beneficial for achieving a con-ceptual change in understanding if students are moreoccupied with theorising and applying knowledge thanwith simply memorising or writing. Emphasis shouldtherefore be on designing learning activities that stim-ulate the more high-level cognitive processes.

In the learning activity–dimension, no single learn-ing strategy has been determined to work better thanothers in all contexts, according to Lalley and Miller(2007), and therefore the authors’ suggestion is to usea variety of learning activities, and to use those bestsuited to the course material and the expected back-ground knowledge level of the students. It is easy toimagine that an online course of only direct instructionthrough lectures could be quite monotonous to attend,and that even only a few demonstrations of concepts ora few experiments could break the monotony. Carefully

choosing a variety of appropriate learning activities istherefore the main goal along this dimension.

The social dimension stipulates that the teachermust create a motivation for the learning process andsome form of social relations between the students be-fore group-based learning processes can be expectedto work. In this dimension, the first goal is to moveas many of the students from a surface-learning ap-proach, with mainly external motivations from grades,job, paychecks, etc., to a deep-learning approach wherestudents are to a larger extent motivated by internalfactors. Note that Biggs (1999) proposes that thischange can be achieved by employing more of the ac-tive learning strategies, which in turn engages the morehigh-level cognitive processes in students.

The available workspace of online learning methodsavailable to the teacher is a tetrahedron formed by thelevel of cognitive processes, the learning activities, andthe social processes of students as shown in Figure 2.The goal of active online learning is to make sure thisworkspace is at least as large as the objectives of thecourse dictate. If the learning objectives of the courseexpect students to explain or apply concepts, the learn-ing activities should reflect these objectives to create asufficiently large online learning workspace.

Figure 2: A surface approach to learning dominated byexternal motivating factors vs a deeper learn-ing approach dominated by internal motiva-tion factors.

Furthermore, based on the findings of Johnson andJohnson (2009), there is a hierarchy between a com-petitive learning effort, an individualistic learning ef-fort, and a cooperative learning effort. The cooperative

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learning strategy has been shown to have better overalleffects on achievements, but note that there are con-texts where competitive and individualistic approachesmay be warranted (lack of resources, high costs of co-operation, etc.). Note also that the cooperative learn-ing approach with group processing of individuals’ con-tributions to the cooperation – dubbed in this paperas “cooperative reflection” – has been found to showthe highest effects on achievement. Competitive andindividualistic efforts are supported by individualisticlearning activities, while group-based learning activi-ties support cooperative learning strategies, as illus-trated in Figure 3. Note however, that there is notnecessarily any difference between the level of cogni-tive processes that individuals engage in with theseapproaches – well-motivated students in an individu-alistic learning effort may also be theorising about thematerial. The point is rather that, according to John-son and Johnson (2009), higher achievements can beaccomplished through a cooperative learning effort ifthe context favours it.

Figure 3: Competitive, individualistic, and cooperativelearning efforts.

4.2 Recommendations for learning in threedimensions

What are the recommendations for active online learn-ing that we can see from these proposed dimensionsof learning? The first recommendation follows closelythat of Biggs (1999) in that if teachers have a classof both deep learners and surface learners, employingthe more active teaching strategies with clear and un-

derstandable objectives for the learning activities willengage the more high-level cognitive process in stu-dents. The active learning strategies should, accordingto Biggs (1999), in turn lead to a conceptual change instudents, and thus influence their motivation for learn-ing to be more focused on the learning itself.

Wanting to employ the more active methods ofteaching has a prerequisite of motivating students toparticipate in the learning activities, but also motivat-ing them to create some form of positive social relationsbetween each other. Again, one cannot expect groupwork to succeed if there is no effort to create some formof positive social relations between the group mem-bers. Competitive approaches to learning where stu-dents treat each other as competitors have been shownin Johnson and Johnson (2009) to be less effective thanindividualistic learning efforts, where the success of oneindividual does not come at a cost for others. Bothindividualistic and competitive approaches have beenshown to be less effective than a cooperative learningstrategy, where the success of the individual is alsodependent on the success of others. The cooperativestrategy also more readily incorporates learning activ-ities such as discussions and teaching others. Thus,when designing learning activities, the teacher shouldconsider whether the design encourages competition,individualistic work, or cooperation. From the findingsin Johnson and Johnson (2009), online quizzes designedas competitions between individuals during lectures donot necessarily lead to lower scores, but online quizzesthat group students together as teams, with enoughtime to create social relations and to reflect on the co-operation, are more likely to give higher scores overtime.

The findings of Biggs (1999) and Johnson and John-son (2009) suggest the conclusion that in addition toformulating clear academic objectives for the courseand designing the learning activities and an assessmentstrategy to support those objectives, clear objectiveson social interactions between students in the courseshould also be formulated if active learning is to beemployed in the course. These social objectives are im-portant for even the most basic active learning strategyof asking students a question while giving a lecture.If the social relations between students are not suffi-ciently supportive to encourage students to raise theirhands, this learning strategy will fail to activate stu-dents.

The goal of active online learning should be to moti-vate students to employ high-level cognitive processesthrough using a variety of appropriate learning activi-ties, and to create positive social relations between stu-dents through cooperative learning efforts where stu-dents and the teacher reflect on how the cooperation is

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working within the group.

4.3 Synchronous, asynchronous, grouping,and blended learning

Using the reflections in the preceding sections as astarting point, it is natural to suggest that to employ avariety of learning activities, not all activities should beasynchronous in online active learning. While readingis naturally asynchronous in nature, lectures with di-rect instruction and some forms of demonstrations lendthemselves easily to asynchronous online video presen-tations – which can even include short quizzes on thelecture material embedded into the video stream. Dis-cussing and teaching, however, will often benefit froma real-time interaction between participants. Writtendiscussions through emails, discussion boards, and fo-rums can to a certain extent make discussions andgroup activities an asynchronous activity, but for manycontexts the easier (and sometimes more social) op-tion could be to have online real-time discussions us-ing some form of video conferencing systems or chatswhere all participants participate simultaneously.

An important point concerning online learning in-volving video is the perceived distance between theteacher and the students. On one hand, it is hardfor the teacher to see all students simultaneously onvideo during synchronous activities with large groups,and of course there is even less feedback when stu-dents are working with asynchronous material. In ad-dition, it is easy for students to become “watchers”rather than participants in both synchronous and asyn-chronous (video) activities. To combat students’ feel-ing of passively watching a show rather than activelyparticipating (engaging in higher-order cognitive pro-cesses), active learning is even more important in anonline course than in a face-to-face course.

In the closing of schools and universities because ofthe coronavirus (COVID-19) in spring 2020, facultyand students were faced with transforming their learn-ing activities to online learning in a very short periodof time – with traditional physical classroom teachingno longer being an alternative. It is important to notethat this transformation did not necessarily create anonline course. When universities close, students areboth forced to participate online, and forced to par-ticipate as individuals, because of the social distancingregulations. Courses are put online overnight, and verylittle planning for online learning can be expected.

Normal online learning situations include situationswhere parts of the campus course are taught online andparts are taught in physical classrooms (blended learn-ing), or where parts of the student group are partici-pating in the physical classroom while other parts are

participating online, which we can call “blended grouplearning”. In blended group learning, all students canparticipate on equal terms in asynchronous learning ac-tivities, but for synchronous activities, there are recog-nisable challenges in providing equal opportunities forlearning for students and groups of students participat-ing 1) face to face in the classroom with the teacher, 2)individually online, or 3) as members of groups online.Multi-campus universities giving the same course atdifferent campuses may easily have a group participat-ing face to face, other groups participating online, andalso have individual students participating from home.It is important to address the different group dynam-ics that can occur during these different scenarios whendesigning courses for online learning.

Faced with the heterogeneous distribution of stu-dents in groups and individually, and between face-to-face and online students, some of the major challengesare 1) to create positive social relations between in-dividuals, 2) to decide whether face-to-face studentsand online students should be in the same groups ornot, and 3) to balance learning activities between thosethat benefit face-to-face students more and those thatbenefit online students more. The third challenge isabout the balance between not choosing learning ac-tivities that exclude online students – such as physicalexperiments – versus the potentially reduced learningoutcome for face-to-face students when using onlinesimulations instead of physical experiments. Carefulconsideration should be taken to at least achieve anoverall balance between learning activities that benefitface-to-face students or online students more for theentire course.

5 Active online learning ofengineering

Given the three dimensions of active online learningpresented in Section 4, I propose in Figure 4 a guideto show how objectives formulated along the cognitiveand social dimensions translate into activities and pos-sible methods of evaluation and assessment – and alsohow digital resources can aid in the learning activitiesand evaluations. Note that this figure is based on theauthor’s preferences and style of teaching, and differ-ent teachers may form different connections betweenobjectives, activities, and evaluations. However, I be-lieve that following the constructive alignment methodof Biggs (1999) with objectives, activities, and assess-ments, the chart in Figure 4 can serve as a guide fordesigning an active online course that also takes intoaccount the social dimension of online learning.

The Levels 1–4 learning objectives in Figure 4 are

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Figure 4: Graph of online learning objectives, learning activities, evaluation methods, and digital and physicalresources. Arrows from activities to physical resources are shown in red, and to digital resources inblue. Solid lines indicate a strong link between concepts, dashed (− −) lines indicate a weaker linkbetween concepts. Connections made to/from a cluster of concepts indicate that all concepts in thecluster are linked through the connection.

inspired from Biggs (1999), who formed the curricu-lum through clear objectives stating the level of under-standing required for each objective, and used activeverbs to specify the desired behaviour of students. Inaddition, building on the results on social interdepen-dence by Johnson and Johnson (2009), I propose foursocial objectives on both an individual and a grouplevel, and suggest that these must be met to some ex-tent before group learning activities can succeed – andtherefore also before higher-order learning objectiveson Levels 3 and 4 can be met. It is hard to imaginea successful and effective group activity if students arenot prepared or contributing to the group.

The learning activities in Figure 4 are inspired bythe activities proposed by Lalley and Miller (2007),Biggs (1999), Johnson and Johnson (2009), Salmon(2002), and Hampel (2006). I have clustered the ac-tivities into individual/class activities – where thereis little social interaction between students, and intogroup activities – with more social interaction be-tween students. The groups can be informal ad hocgroups formed at the start of the activity for short dis-cussions or for getting to know classmates, or moreformal groups, as suggested in Johnson and Johnson(2009), forming project teams, lab partners, or learn-ing groups, and whose membership lasts longer than

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for an ad hoc activity.

The evaluation methods and assessments in Fig-ure 4 are inspired by different forms of evaluations pro-posed by Lalley and Miller (2007), Biggs (1999), andJohnson and Johnson (2009), and are only a selectionfrom the large group of methods available for evaluat-ing learning objectives and social objectives in a class.The selection is made based on what evaluation meth-ods are most relevant for teaching engineering classes,and other fields may have different preferences for se-lecting evaluation methods.

In a purely online or a blended learning course, bothlearning activities and evaluation methods should takeadvantage of available digital resources. I proposea number of digital resources in Figure 4 to aid andinspire readers to find appropriate digital resources intheir online teaching activities and evaluations. Thelist is far from exhaustive, but is based on currentlyavailable and mature technologies that teachers canapply to online courses without needing explicit pro-gramming skills or formal training to use the differenttechnologies.

Note that the use of audiovisual material (see Lalleyand Miller (2007)) in presentations, video conferences,etc., has become common today, and is implicit in thefigure and therefore left out for clarity. Screen sharingin video conferences is supported by almost all videoconferencing systems, and is not explicitly shown inthe figure, but is included in the resource “video con-ference”.

Figure 4 can be used as a guide to student-activeonline learning in the following way. First, clear objec-tives (both learning objectives and social objectives)should be stated for the course using descriptive verbs(either taken from the leftmost column in Figure 4 orusing appropriate synonyms). Second, activities thatsupport the selected objectives should be chosen fromthe second column – either from the individual/classcluster if objectives are on Levels 1 or 2, or combinedwith group activities if objectives are social or on Levels3 or 4. Third, digital (and physical) resources may nowbe chosen from column three to support those activitiesonline. Fourth, the desired form(s) of evaluation shouldbe chosen from the fourth column of Figure 4, and last,the digital resources that support the selected evalua-tion methods for the course should be chosen from theresource elements in the third column.

As an example, if the course objective is for studentsto be able to list facts or concepts, individual/class ac-tivities, such as reading or an instructional lecture,can be sufficient learning activities. The reading activ-ity may be supported by additional online resources,and the instructional lecture may be supported by avideo conferencing system sharing a presentation and

a digital whiteboard for drawing/writing. The out-come of the activities can be evaluated using, e.g.,a multiple-choice quiz conducted via an online re-sponse system.

Note that both direct instruction and asynchronouslearning videos mainly encourage lower-level cognitiveprocesses, and should be followed by one of the morestudent-active learning methods if we expect studentsto be able to attain high-level learning objectives.Thus, if the learning objective is for students to beable to identify, classify, or maybe compare someconcepts, an asynchronous video lecture could be suf-ficient, but if the objective is to make students ableto reflect or theorise about the methods, one of thestudent-active learning methods should be employed.

The list of digital resources does not mandate anyparticular software for the different online activities,but from the list, it is possible to extract some require-ments for the set of digital resources that should beavailable to an online engineering class. First, it is im-portant to have a suitable learning management system(LMS) to organise information provided to students,and to facilitate hand-ins, text-based discussions, andgroup management tasks. The organisation of infor-mation in the LMS is even more important in an on-line course than in a face-to-face course, and teachersshould be very clear and explicit in providing directionsand information on the LMS to avoid misunderstand-ings or missed information. One recommendation isthat teachers should make an overall structure organis-ing the LMS, and then explicitly explain this structureevery time they refer to new assignments, new lecturematerial, or new information.

Second, it is important to have a good online videoconferencing tool that allows real-time two-way com-munication between teacher and students, between stu-dents, and between groups of students. In practice, thisrequirement means that the online video conferenc-ing tool must support the creation of breakout rooms(groups) of participants, and functionality for chats –both within the full-class video conference and in thebreakout rooms – for asking questions, commenting,and discussing. A particularly nice feature of a videoconferencing tool, which simplifies discussion manage-ment for large student groups, is the possibility of rais-ing a digital hand to signal that a participant wantsto speak. The importance of proper audiovisual equip-ment and of agreeing on a set of digital class rules onmuting, video on/off, private chats, etc., are also cru-cial factors for successful video conferences. Generally,students should be encouraged to turn on their videofor online video conferences, but many students arehesitant to show their video, and clear expectationsfrom the teacher on this subject should be expressed

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as early as possible in a course. The video conferencesystem should support digital whiteboards (integratedthrough add-on devices or through online services), andpreferably should connect a second camera for showingphysical demonstrations and experiments (the demon-stration can be shown using the primary web camera,but makes it more cumbersome). Online quiz support(student response systems) in the video conference sys-tem can also be beneficial, but there are plenty of ded-icated softwares that provide this functionality, and itcan also be integrated in the LMS.

Third, recorded video lectures and podcasts areasynchronous resources that can be made eitherthrough using dedicated software, or through usingthe recording functionalities of many video conferenc-ing systems, and are a good alternative to synchronousonline instructional lectures. They can also be usefulfor demonstrations and tutorials, and videos can some-times be a sufficient substitute for real-life excursions.

Fourth, a digital team workspace, either in the LMSor using dedicated software (e.g., Slack, MicrosoftTeams, etc.), can greatly support many group activ-ities, and can also strengthen the social dimension ofonline learning by letting students dedicate some of thecommunication channels for personal and less formalcommunication.

Last, many digital tools may offer more than theirtraditional real-life counterparts do. Online resourcescan supplement textbooks and papers to inform stu-dents in their reading activities, and virtual realitycan be useful for demonstrations, tutorials, and discov-ery learning. Online collaborative whiteboards (e.g.,flinga.fi, padlet, etc.), where students can post ideasor questions or reflect on concepts in real time to sup-port peer or whole-class discussions, have been shownto create an informal atmosphere that encourages stu-dents to ask more questions, and also to create asense of social connectedness between students as re-ported in Ludvigsen et al. (2019). These collabora-tive whiteboards may be particularly important forlarger groups, and especially if there are few social re-lations between students from before. Some servicesoffer anonymity for participants, and this anonymitycan encourage students who are hesitant to participatein larger groups to contribute.

A final note on digital resources is that it is quitepossible to have digital coffee breaks as ad hoc ac-tivities to strengthen social relationships between stu-dents. While this digital social break is not necessarilythe same type of digital resource as the others proposedin this paper, it is a quite useful resource for build-ing social relationships among online students, and istherefore included in Figure 4 as a resource.

Note also that two learning activities commonly used

in teaching engineering, practising (laboratory) and ex-perimenting, are also linked to a physical resourcein Figure 4 – the lab equipment. Although the learn-ing activity of experimenting can be aided by simu-lations, in many engineering disciplines the activitiesof experimenting and practising on physical labora-tory equipment are mandatory activities to achieve theskills needed to graduate. Recently, lab facilities are in-creasingly put online to provide online experimentationand laboratories for students, but these online labora-tories are mostly for running closed process-models andmachines with little interaction with the world outsidethe lab equipment. For experimenting and practisingon real-life scenarios with environmental disturbances,etc., the availability of online laboratories is scarce.Thus, for the time being, I suggest that if someone isdesigning an online engineering course that emphasisesthe importance of students experimenting and prac-tising on lab equipment or machines to learn a cer-tain skill, the course should most likely be a blendedcourse with some activities placed in physical labora-tories. These lab activities are, however, also a goodopportunity to build stronger social relationships be-tween students.

In concluding this section on active online learningof engineering, it is important to note that studentsmay not be familiar or may not intuitively understandevery digital tool or resource they are exposed to inthe course. A short tutorial on the important digitalresources used in the course may be necessary for get-ting students started with new digital tools. Gettingan overview of students’ competencies in digital tools(and other prerequisites for the course) can be a goodstart to a course to make sure students are familiar withthe tools, and this information can be gathered usinganonymous student response systems at the start ofthe course.

6 Active online learning in a mobilerobotics course

This section sums up the concepts discussed so farin an example to design an online course in mobilerobotics. In addition to the objectives, activities,methods of evaluation, and available physical/digitalresources that are used for designing the online course,the design process also takes into account the expectedbackground knowledge of students, the acquired studyskills of students, and the scientific content of thecourse.

The example course is a 4 ECTS module on mo-bile robotics as part of the 10 ECTS robotics course atWestern Norway University of Applied Sciences. Par-

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ticipating students are in their third and final yearof their BA studies, and belong to three differentcampuses of the university in three different cities.Students are expected to be familiar with the neces-sary mathematical background and concepts from con-trol theory, but lack application-specific knowledge ofrobotics, and of how robots are traditionally modelledand controlled. Students participate mainly in threegroups from classrooms at each campus equipped withbasic audiovisual systems, but some students may alsochoose to join as individuals from home. Students atthe same campus know each other from before, whilestudents from different campuses do not. Students inprevious years have been known to prepare little be-fore lectures, but to participate to some extent in lec-tures through asking or answering questions. In pre-vious years, the course has been taught using mostlyteacher-active learning strategies, but also with somegroup work in the laboratory. The choice of video con-ferencing system is Zoom, and the mandatory LMS forthe course is Canvas. The course is based on chapters4–6 in the textbook “Robotics, Vision and Control”(Corke, 2017).

Learning and social objectives have been formulatedfor the course using the active verbs of Figure 4. Theobjectives for the course are that students should beable to

• explain and compare kinematic models of thedifferent mobile robots in Corke (2017),

• theorise new kinematic models from drawings ordescriptions

• solve kinematic control problems to steer the dif-ferent types of mobile robots in Corke (2017) to apoint, pose, or trajectory, and apply the controllaws in simulations

• classify mobile robots into holonomic and non-holonomic systems, and explain these concepts

• compare and reflect on the best mobile robotnavigation strategies from Corke (2017) in differ-ent situations

• apply the different navigation algorithms of Corke(2017) in simulations

• explain and compare the different localisationtechniques for mobile robots in Corke (2017)

• explain the Kalman filter for inertial navigation

• explain simultaneous localization and mapping(SLAM)

• be prepared for and participate in learning ac-tivities

• cooperate with others on group assignments, andcontribute to discussions and other students’learning

• reflect on the cooperation, and on possible im-provements

There are four learning objectives on mobile robotmodels, two on mobile navigation, three on localisationand mapping, and three social objectives for learning.Most learning objectives are on Level 3 in Figure 4, butthere are two Level-4 objectives, and one Level-2 ob-jective. Based on the guide in Figure 4, I have selecteda number of learning activities that support these ob-jectives, and have selected a set of evaluation methodsto evaluate learning progress towards the objectives.The selected learning activities are

• individual/class activities: reading, instruc-tional lecture, solving exercises/problems,and demonstration

• group activities: peer teaching, practising(laboratory), discovery learning, and project

• ad hoc group activities: discussing (case), andbuilding relationships

The evaluation methods used in the course are dividedinto oral methods: class summary, group process-ing, and feedback, and written methods: report,hand-in, and other methods: practical test, multi-ple choice quizzes, and an exam. The activities andevaluations are supported by the digital resources fora video conference using breakout rooms, a dig-ital whiteboard, a shared experimental camera,and digital social breaks, and also by the LMS,an online response system, simulations, and byrecorded videos and other online resources. Thepractising activity and practical test demands also theuse of physical lab equipment.

The objectives, activities, evaluations, and resourcesfor the course in mobile robotics are shown in Figure 5.Note again that the digital social break can hardly bedefined as a digital tool in itself, but is an important(and often forgotten) mechanism for stimulating socialrelations between students.

From the objectives, activities, and evaluations, Ican construct two plans for the course on mobilerobotics. The overall course plan will address the listedobjectives through learning activities, and will followup with overall evaluations of the whole course. Thelecture plan will address a typical lecture (typically 2–4hours) on a specific subject in the course.

The course plan of when to teach what content fol-lows closely the chronological order from the listing ofthe learning objectives earlier in this section, and is

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Figure 5: Graph of online learning objectives, learning activities, evaluation methods, and digital and physicalresources for a course on mobile robotics.

not repeated here. The social objectives, however, willbe addressed for every lecture, but more emphasis willbe put on activities supporting the social objectivesat the start of the course to create a learning envi-ronment that supports both class and group activities.The course plan will therefore adopt the five stagesfor active online learning from Salmon (2002) to sup-port 1) access and motivation – welcoming students,2) online socialisation – building relationships, 3) in-formation exchange, 4) knowledge construction – col-laborative interaction, and 5) development – reflectionon the learning process. Since the course design processsuggests that the course should be an online blendedcourse with online learning supplemented with labora-tory work on physical lab equipment, I have combinedthe stages of welcoming and socialisation with accessto the physical lab equipment. Building on the find-ings of Lalley and Miller (2007), where students showedmore retention when concepts where introduced in apractical laboratory context followed by a lecture thanvice versa, the students will experiment and practisein the physical lab while also building social relationsvery early in the course plan. In the first lecture ofthe course, an anonymous survey using the online re-sponse system will be conducted to map the motivationof students for the course, the background knowledgeand study skills of students, and also how familiar theyare with the digital tools they will use. I will also ad-

dress the overall expectations I have for the studentsconcerning what learning objectives I expect studentsto attain in the course, what activities I expect themto take part in, and will in particular focus on the so-cial objectives I expect them to contribute to. Digitalclass rules on always having the camera activated whileparticipating in class will be established in this lecture,since this is an important aspect to promote the socialdimension of the learning environment.

Based on the objectives, activities, and evaluations,and the suggested digital and physical resources, I canconstruct a lecture plan as illustrated in Table 1 thataddresses both the abstraction of the learning objec-tives and the social objectives of the course. Note thatin Table 1, the video conferencing system is assumedactive for the entire online lecture, and this assumptionis not always explicitly stated in the table. All activi-ties are not necessarily evaluated immediately after anactivity, but can also be evaluated in a general evalu-ation following a lecture or at fixed points during thesemester, or as part of the exam.

In the lecture plan in Table 1, I expect studentsto read the textbook and use the available additionalmaterials, such as online resources and asynchronousvideos, to prepare for the lecture. This objectivemay be evaluated using multiple-choice quizzes em-bedded into the additional material, or by havingmultiple-choice quizzes available for students to help

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Table 1: Lecture plan for mobile robotics.

Activity Objective Evaluation Resource

Before lecture:

Reading Prepare (Multiple choice)Online response system, onlineresources; recorded videos

First session:

Welcome Cooperate, participate None Video conferenceExplain objectives, ac-tivities, and evaluation

Reflect None Video conference

Discussion on prepara-tions, ad hoc groups

Prepare, explain, reflect,participate

Class summary Breakout rooms

DemonstrationExplain, apply, compare,(solve)

NoneShare experimental camera,simulations

Instructional lectureClassify, explain, compare,solve, contribute

(Multiple choice,exam)

Digital whiteboard

Case discussionExplain, reflect, compare,solve

Class summaryBreakout rooms, digital white-board

Scheduled break

Second session:


None Digital whiteboard

Solve problems Solve, apply Hand-inBreakout rooms, digital white-board, simulations

Discussion on exercisesExplain, reflect, compare,solve

Class summaryBreakout rooms, digital white-board

Digital social break:

Building relationships Cooperate, contribute Group processingBreakout rooms, Digital socialbreak

Third session:


(Multiple choice,exam)

Digital whiteboard

Discovery learningTheorise, cooperate, apply,contribute

Class summary,group processing

Breakout rooms, digital white-board, simulations

Discussion; class andgroups

Reflect Group processingVideo conference, breakoutrooms

Scheduled break

Fourth session:

Practising (laboratory)Apply, explain, solve, co-operate, contribute, reflect

Practical test,feedback

Lab equipment, simulations

Video conferencing is always used for the lecture for linking classrooms and participants together withvideo, for ”raise hand” functionalities, and to enable ad hoc breakout rooms to be formed across campuses.

self-evaluate their preparations before each lecture.

The first session of the lecture starts with a wel-coming activity to make sure students are seen andrecognised as important participants in the class. The

second activity clearly explains the learning objectivesand activities in the lecture, and how the objectiveswill be evaluated. Both these first two activities ofthe session are done as whole-class activities using the

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online video conference system.

Following the reflection on objectives and activities,the students are divided into small ad hoc groups inbreakout rooms across campuses of two to three stu-dents to discuss their preparation for this lecture, andto prepare at least one question about the preparedmaterial for the class summary. In addition to target-ing the learning objectives, this group discussion alsoaims at creating social relations between students atdifferent campuses.

The course in mobile robotics contains many practi-cal examples through either simulations or practical ex-periments, and the demonstration activity will demon-strate simulations or practical experiments (inspired byLalley and Miller (2007)) of the concepts before intro-ducing the theoretical basis for them in the next activ-ity. The following short instructional lecture activitybuilds on the prepared text and additional material,and highlights the most important concepts from thismaterial. The session is concluded by a case discus-sion on the lectured material in small ad hoc groups(2–3 students, mixed campus) with a class summaryafterwards.

The second session in the lecture starts with an in-structional lecture activity on how to apply the con-cepts in practise, and is followed by an activity of stu-dents solving exercises or problems in small breakoutrooms – and helping each other. The session is con-cluded by a class summary reflection on the problems,and a more thorough explanation of common difficul-ties.

The second break is a digital social break where stu-dents are divided into three- or four-person ad hocgroups across campuses to discuss off-topic issues, andwhere a few groups are expected to report back to theclass on their topic of discussion to ensure participationin the group discussions.

The third session starts with an instructional lectureon a topic that students have not yet prepared for, butwill prepare for before the next lecture. This activityis followed by a discovery-learning session in learninggroups, where a variant of the discovery-learning activ-ity described in Lalley and Miller (2007) is employed,and where students are given small problems designedto discover principles or relationships using online sim-ulations (rather than through physical experiments).This discovery-learning activity is evaluated using agroup reflection process in the learning groups, andalso through a short class summary after the activity.

The last session of the lecture involves practisingthe knowledge from the preparations, instructional lec-tures, demonstrations, and discussions in a laboratoryexercise. Parts of the lab activity may be done us-ing online simulations or online experimental resources,

but there will also be practical experiments that mustbe done on physical lab equipment in the laboratoryon the different campuses.

In the lectures, I propose to address the blendedgroup learning challenges of students participating ingroups on different campuses or as individuals fromhome by allowing students to group physically in class-rooms if desired, but all students participating in thecourse should also be connected to the video conferenc-ing tool with proper audiovisual equipment (headsetwith microphone, web camera). This connection al-lows students to use the raise-hand functionality of thevideo conferencing tool, and allows the teacher to giveattention to all participants on equal terms, to formad hoc groups across campuses using breakout rooms,and to switch easily between face-to-face discussionsand digital discussions between students. This connec-tion also ensures that all participants – face-to-face andonline – can see and hear everyone contributing withquestions about or inputs to the class learning activi-ties. The online collaborative whiteboard flinga.fi withanonymous participation will be employed to lower thethreshold of asking questions or commenting on thematerial during sessions.

7 Conclusions

This paper proposes a guide to designing student-activeonline courses for engineering. The proposed guidetakes into account the social processes between stu-dents as a prerequisite for successful group activities,and also suggests digital resources to aid both in learn-ing activities and in the evaluation of progress towardslearning objectives and social objectives. The guideis applied to redesign a traditional course in mobilerobotics into an online course to exemplify the use-fulness of the guide. In the future, the effect of theredesign on the learning outcomes from the course willbe investigated to provide additional insight into howdifferent online learning activities can be supported bydigital resources to achieve the desired learning andsocial objectives of a student-active online course inengineering.

Acknowledgements and Author’scontribution

This work was partially funded by the Research Coun-cil of Norway through grant number 280771. E. Kyrk-jebø wrote the paper, and thanks everyone who hasmade useful comments about the manuscript. Theauthor is also grateful for the opportunity to learnGraphViz for making Figures 4 and 5.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407304111

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Documents

A Guide to Student-active Online Learning in Engineering