10 procedia_s bs_peka2012_hbs (1)_131112 template_151112

7/30/2019 10 Procedia_S BS_Peka2012_hbs (1)_131112 Template_151112

1/8

Seminar Pendidikan Kejuruteraan dan Alam Bina 2012

KongresPengajaran &Pembelajaran

UKM201215 18 Disember

2012

http://www.u

km.my/kongres2012

Open Ended Laboratory Through Student'sDesigned Experiment

Hilmi Sanusi*

Jabatan Kejuruteraan Elektrik, Elektronik dan Sistem, FKAB, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia"

Abstract

The laboratory work for the first year student of Electrical, Electronic and System Engineeringwhich is compulsory, exposes the student to the practical work to learn hands-on. Previously, aproject is assigned to a group of two students and they will try either to construct it or to solve itwithin the last two weeks of the laboratory session. Then they need to present the lesson that theylearnt during the project. A trial of students designed experiment was introduced during 2011/2012session to replace the previously assigned project. Students are required to use previously learntlaboratory session in order to design their own laboratory. During the process of designing theexperiment, they are also required to determine the objective, the scope of the experiment, the

methodology and the theory behind the experiment. Each group is required to prove theirexperiment during presentation and to prepare a report. The student is graded based on theoriginality of their idea, the amount of previously learnt laboratory, oral presentation and lessonlearnt through their experiment. Even though students found the project to be difficult, but based onthe number of experiment surfacing from exercise is encouraging. In fact one of the experimentsdesigned through the course has been used in second year laboratory course.

2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: open ended project; students design experiment; student-centered lab
http://www.ukm.my/kongres2012http://www.ukm.my/kongres2012http://www.ukm.my/kongres2012http://www.ukm.my/kongres2012


2/8

Hilmi Sanusi / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2012) 000000

1. Introduction

The role of engineer is to create benefits for humankind through manipulating

materials, energy and information. In our increasingly technologically-based society,

engineering education has a central role in preparing engineers for the full disciplinary

nature of the problems they will face. Even though engineering and engineering

education are more diverse now than before, but the society demands even more

(Peterson & Feisel 2002). Engineers are required to have knowledge beyond theory,

which can be gained through laboratory work. The nature and emphasis of these

laboratories have change over the years to cope with the current needs. Laboratory

experiment is intended to answer specific questions of immediate importance, but on the

other hand, most of the laboratory instructions are designed to learn something that is

well understood by practicing engineers (Feisal & Rosa 2005). A glimpse through several

journals in Engineering Education, relatively little has been written about laboratory

instruction and delivery since much attention has been paid to curriculum and teachingmethods.

At the Department of Electricals, Electronics and Systems Engineering (JKEES),

UKM, laboratory works initially have not been given a serious attention; Year 1, Year 2

and Year 3 have only one lab course each year to cater all the requirements. Later, several

embedded lab was introduced and several lab manuals have been experimented to given

to the students. Requirement from the government and the governing and accreditation

bodies call for several modifications and improvements to the lab manual. Engineering

Accreditation Council (EAC) which is the responsible body to represent the Washington

Accord, a world accreditation treaty, is constantly improving the quality of graduates thus

set new requirements to the lab experiments. Apart from these requirements, the students

must be prepared with current technology so that they are fit for employment.

Nevertheless, students also must capable to conduct their own experiment so that they areable to explore new knowledge. Each of these interested parties or stakeholders have their

own set of requirements. Setting all the specifications required to design a laboratory

instruction is indispensable in order to produce a concomitant benefit between

stakeholders. Independent of the method of delivery, the engineering instructional

laboratories must meet at least one of the fundamental objectives (Feisel & Peterson

2002).

2. Background


3/8


Previously, the lab instruction at the department is strongly influenced by the

dominant educational paradigm, "didactic instruction," where learning is viewed as

an information transmission process: teachers have the information, students don't,and teachers' lectures serve to move information into the heads of students. (Soloway

et al. 1996). Contrary, the new requirements for the engineering education are

encouraging for students to be actively engaged in learning, constructing understanding

and meaning, not just receiving it. The didactic instruction or sometimes known as

teacher- centered learning determines methods, activities, and techniques that will be

used by the teacher. The teacher decides what is to be learned, what is to be tested, and

how the class is to be run. Usually, the teacher is in the centre of the classroom giving

instruction with little input from students; and decides the goals of the class based on

some outside criteria. Yuhua characterized the student centered learning as teacher plays

peripheral roles where students are the focus to control over activity or give some input to

the curriculum and allowing students to design their own assessment. The teacher

monitors the students that work in groups and gives advice or ideas so that they may draw

conclusions and solutions independently or cooperatively. Comparing both pedagogymethods, Johnson and Johnson (1989) found that group presentation in student-centred

education resulted higher morale of as students seemed to enjoy the competitiveness and

stimulation of group. The students not only scored higher academically but also gained

some social skills through cooperative work that bond within the group members.

JKEES currently runs several departmental labs; either embedded (run concurrent with

the subject but need to register independently) or courses by their own. A lab coordinator

will constantly review the lab experiments and their relevance to the field as well as their

pedagogical impact on the current students. Prior to the start of a session, a meeting with

the lab teaching team is organized to select topics that are required to be given some

emphasis so that specific lab instruction can be designed. The topics are obtained from

consultation with several course coordinators that teach fundamental courses. Throughout

the semester, several meetings are coordinated with lab teaching team to ensure therunning of the lab is in tandem with the courses taught. Figure 1 shows the step taken by

students from receiving the manuals to submitting the lab report. Students are given an

instruction, time table, lab safety procedure and lab manual during the first week of the

session. The lab session only starts at the third week of the session. This enables the lab

to run a week behind the lecture such that the lab can either be revision to the lecture or

strengthening the understanding of the theory. In the past, all of the instructions are

clearly given to the students and with the help of demonstrator; students are expected to

obtain certain specific results that follow the marking scheme. There are ten topics that

are selected with the last two weeks will be used by the student to prepare for their

projects. Many things have been experimented for the projects; from building line

tracking car to soldering a given simple circuit. Many of those used to fill in the gap of

the EAC requirement without a specific objective in mind.

There are several problems arisen from the implementation of the lab. Students tend to

take lightly on the lab experiments as they have a collection of lab results, thus they will

just use one of the past results to be copied without really doing the experiment. To

worsen the problem, the pre lab that needs to be prepared prior to the lab and discussion

that needs to be hand in a day later is merely a cut and paste or just changing the font.

The groups of students that do the lab on Monday feel disadvantage as the group later of

the week will obtain the solution from them. Students have lost enthusiasm in doing the

experiment thus requires fresh new approach in conducting the experiment. Students need

to be challenged in order to make them to be more creative.


4/8


Figure 1. Students experiment procedure

Several new strategies have been introduced to lessen the problems, such as the lab

report must be hand written, the discussion need to be handed in the same day and other

measures. However, these are only immediate remedies that do not give a long term

solution. Student-centered learning offers some benefits where it is able to persuade

students to think more about their learning style, learning ability and preferences. But the

whole principle of student-centered learning cannot be adopted at the department as the

timetable disallows them doing it at their own pace. Indeed, the new lab manual was

planned which has an emphasis on student-centered learning process. The core idea in the

new lab manuals is the students will come out with their own method in handling theexperiment.

Developing a new lab manual usually takes quite some time and effort, so most of the

experiments that cover basic knowledge in Electrical Engineering will remain as is. The

experiments are classified into two categories; guided lab experiments and unguided lab

experiments. The guided experiments are primarily basic experiments that help the

student to understand fundamental measurement, data collecting, analysis and

interpretation. Unguided lab experiment exposes the student to do design and analysis.

The lab manual intended for department will gradually reduces the guided lab

experiments and increases the number of unguided experiments. In order to measure the

students ability to handle the new approach in dealing with the lab, one of the

experiments is selected as a first step toward student-centered lab experiments. The result

will be used as a yardstick on how to implement and the rate of implementation.

Instruction manual

Pre Lab

Lab session

Data collection

Exp. conclusion

Discussion


5/8


The most suitable experiment that can be used as a pilot experiment is the project.

Initially, students were given topics, circuit or simple projects to be completed in the last

two weeks where they will have to present their results, discusses the lesson learnt andprepare a formal lab report. Some good students feel the challenge is too simple for them,

whereas for the weak students, the same challenge is too difficult for them. Most of the

time, students have a tendency to disagree with the project that was given to them. A trial

of students design experiment was introduced during 2011/2012 session. Instead of the

students were assigned with a topics, they need to come out with their own set of

experiment to measure some unknown parameters using the methods previously learnt

during the lab. Students are informed two weeks prior to the beginning of the project

week and should present the topic a week before the project start. This is because the

subjects are totally new to both of the students and the lab instructors. The proposal from

the students need to be analyzed carefully such that the experiment must possess the

fundamental objectives of engineering instructional laboratories as suggested by

(Peterson & Feisel 2002) which are listed in Table 1.

As for the students, they are required to give a process flow of their experiment andstate clearly the objective of their experiment. They also need to emphasize the scope and

show clearly the methodology of the experiment. The methodology used will make use of

the theory that they have learnt in the classroom and also in the lab. Partial or full

simulation is also needed in the proposal. The scope of experiment not only discusses

related parameters but also explain a definite distribution of contribution of each member

in the experiment. Finally, the students will be evaluated during the oral presentation

where they need to show and prove the workability of their experiment and how do they

measure or obtain such parameters. They are also encouraged to show the calibration

processes if a sensor is being developed. A formal lab report is also expected from the

student at the end of the presentation.

The grade of the project covers to about 20% - 25% of the total mark, which is

equivalent to a final exam. The project is graded based on the originality of the idea, theamount of knowledge used in the previous lab, presentation which includes the

functionality of the experiment and lesson learnt through the experiment. The originality

of idea can be judge from the methodology presented in the report. The technique used in

order to carry out the methodology indicates the amount of previously experienced lab

being used. Oral presentation during the demonstration of the experiment points out the

functionality of the experiment. One can easily judge if the experiment is taken from

others or copied from online resources during the presentation. Usually, if the experiment

is originally from their idea, a graph is shown to demonstrate the relation between

parameters before a generalize relation is made. The conclusion and discussion from the

experiment illustrate the lesson learnt throughout the experiment.

Table 1 . Objectives of engineering instructional laboratories.

Objective Description Criteria

1 Instrumentation. Apply appropriate sensors, instrumentation, and/orsoftware tools to make measurements of physical

quantities.2 Models. Identify the strengths and limitations of theoretical models

as predictors of real-world behaviours. This may includeevaluating whether a theory adequately describes a

physical event and establishing or validating a relationshipbetween measured data and underlying physical principles.


6/8


3 Experiment. Devise an experimental approach, specify appropriate

equipment and procedures, implement these procedures,and interpret the resulting data to characterize an

engineering material, component, or system.4 Data Analysis. Demonstrate the ability to collect, analyze, and interpret

data, and to form and support conclusions. Make order ofmagnitude judgments and use measurement unit systems

and conversions.5 Design. Design, build, or assemble a part, product, or system,

including using specific methodologies, equipment, or

materials; meeting client requirements; developing systemspecifications from requirements; and testing anddebugging a prototype, system, or process using

appropriate tools to satisfy requirements.6 Learn from Failure. Identify unsuccessful outcomes due to faulty equipment,

parts, code, construction, process, or design, and then re-engineer effective solutions

7 Creativity. Demonstrate appropriate levels of independent thought,creativity, and capability in real-world problem solving.

8 Psychomotor. Demonstrate competence in selection, modification, andoperation of appropriate engineering tools and resources.

9 Safety. Identify health, safety, and environmental issues related totechnological processes and activities, and deal with them

responsibly.10 Communication. Communicate effectively about laboratory work with a

specific audience, both orally and in writing, at levelsranging from executive summaries to comprehensive

technical reports11 Teamwork. Work effectively in teams, including structure individual

and joint accountability; assign roles, responsibilities, andtasks; monitor progress; meet deadlines; and integrateindividual contributions into a final deliverable.

12 Ethics in theLaboratory

Behave with highest ethical standards, including reporting

information objectively and interacting with integrity.13 Sensory Awareness Use the human senses to gather information and to make

sound engineering judgments in formulating conclusionsabout real-world problems.


7/8


3. Results and Discussions

The numbers of groups that are able to accomplish the project are encouraging. About30% of the groups are able to come out with their own original idea on how to measure a

simple thing with a different approach. More than half of the groups modify experiments

they obtain from online resources and about 20% of the groups imitate almost exactly

from their finding from online resources. This distribution mainly influenced by the

mixture of the student in the group. The group that came out with their experiment is

found to be a mixture of a good performing student academically. The middle group is a

mixture of a good student and lesser performing student or both of the students in the

group are average students. The last percentile is a mixture of both lesser performing

students academically. There are mix reactions gathered from the students, from

interesting to very difficult task. The group that came out with a creative solution point

out that the experiment is very interesting but the last percentile group indicates that the

project is very difficult.

Even though less than half of the student in the class is able to do it successfully, butthe majority of them know what should be done. Since the students are newly exposed to

be independent with no guidance, they are lack of confidence but not the creativity as

they are used to do experiment based on instruction. As a result, students tend to modify

experiment that they found from online resources and adapt with requirements of the

project as they need instructions in conducting the experiment.

This exercise provides a collection of experiments that apply the fundamental theory

which is available to be used in the guided lab experiments. The lab instructor team in

fact has chosen an experiment to build as inclinometer based on resistivity plate for the

application of Wheatstone bridge. The exercise also shows that the students in the

department are able to perform their own experiment with minimal guidance. Currently,

the lab has introduces six unguided experiments and only four guided experiments.

4. Conclusion

The pilot project in the open ended lab experiment indicates the capability of the

students in handling such experiment. The capability of the group in conducting the

experiment depends heavily on the mixture of the academic achievement of the students.

However, the requirements from other classes and labs prohibit from having a good

mixture of students apart from students racial and social diversity. As a result from this

exercise, the department introduced six unguided lab experiments while maintaining only

three guided lab experiments that lead through the students to basic measurement. The

students designed experiment will be closely monitored to ensure no more cut and

paste experiments used by the students.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Head of Department for giving the freedom and

having the full confidence for the Lab coordinator to introduce new methods in lab

experiments. And to all of the lab team members, Mohd Fauzi A.S., Seri Mastura, Mohd

Asrul, Mohd Hairi, Mohd Hafiz, Fazila and Farizah for giving a full commitment in

handling a new delivery method. Last but not least and the most importantly, 2nd Year

students 2011/2012 session for being a guinea pig for this experiment.


8/8


References

Feisel, L.D., Peterson, G.D. (2002). A Colloquy on Learning Objectives For EngineeringEducation Laboratories. Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering

Education Annual Conference & Exposition. San Diego. USA.

Feisel, L.D., Rosa, A.J. (2005). The Role of the Laboratory in Undergraduate Engineering

Education,Journal of Engineering Education. Vol 94. No 1. pp 121-130

Johnson, B. and Johnson B. (1989). Cooperative learning: A new direction. Education,

vol. 117, pp. 39-42.

National Science Foundation, Division of Undergraduate Education (1995). Restructuring

Engineering Education: A Focus on Change. NSF 95-65.

Peterson, G.D., Feisel, L.D. (2002). e-Learning: The Challenge for Engineering

Education. e-Technologies in Engineering Education, A United Engineering

Foundation Conference, Davos, Switzerland, 1116 August, 2002,

http://services.bepress.com/eci/etechnologies/.

Soloway, E., Jackson, S.L., Klein, J., Quintana, C., Reed, J., Spitulnik, J., Stratford, S.J.,Studer, S., Eng, J., Scala, N. (1996). Learning Theory in Practice: Case Studies of

Learner-Centered Design. CHI '96 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on

Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM New York, NY, USA. Pp. 189-196

Special Report The National Engineering Education Research Colloquies, Oct. 2006.

Journal of Engineering Education.

Yuhua, S. (2005). Student-centred methods used in an Instrumental Analysis Laboratory

Course. The China Papers, UniServe Science, Australia

10 procedia_s bs_peka2012_hbs (1)_131112 template_151112

Documents