USING THE WORLD WIDE WEB AS A TEACHING RESOURCE IN
UNDERGRADUATE CLASSES

ABSTRACT

A World Wide Web (WWW) site was designed to support two junior-senior level undergraduate engineering courses taught by the author at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale during the Fall 1996 semester. The courses were Introduction to Environmental Engineering and Numerical Methods for Engineers. The overall purpose of the web site was to disseminate and transfer class material while providing an additional teaching and learning tool. In addition, by integrating the new technology and information resources currently available through the internet, the author was seeking to develop pedagogy that encourages active participation on the part of the student. This paper outlines the approach taken, observations from the instructor, and reactions from the participating students. Overall, the students easily, and enthusiastically, adapted to use the internet resources, and encourage the continued integration of technology and instruction.

INTRODUCTION

Engineering students at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC) are introduced to computers through their undergraduate engineering curriculum. Many courses integrate the use of word processors, spreadsheets and engineering software for preparing laboratory reports and to some extent homework solution. In addition, engineering students are introduced to a high power programming language such as Fortran or C. With more of the public at large using the WWW and the internet, it is critical to expose engineering students to the opportunities these tools offer in education, technology and personal use. In addition, the use of up-to-date information technology offers to increase students' enthusiasm, although some may find it intimidating initially.

Two undergraduate courses were taught with different aspects of the course information linked to a home page or web site. In addition, some assignments were designed so that they could be submitted, graded, and returned using e-mail, eliminating the hard copy. The results reported in this paper are primarily from the Fall 1996 semester. During this time, both of the classes had 55-60 students enrolled. ENGR 351 Numerical Methods for Engineers is a required course for with Mechanical and Civil Engineering undergraduate students. The integration of the web site into the course began in the Summer 1996 semester, and is continuing this semester (Spring 1997). The other course, CE 310 Introduction to Environmental Engineering is a required course for all Civil Engineering undergraduates, but is open to environmental science students. Although the author taught the course in Fall 1995, she introduced the use of the web site in Spring 1996 and fully integrated its use in Fall 1996 semester.

The objective of this paper is to present the approach in which the internet was integrated into the undergraduate courses, and to study the effectiveness of the results. To meet this objective, the paper will outline approach taken to provide information presented through the web site. In addition, the paper will present observations from the instructor, and reactions from the students participating.

OVERVIEW

The web site, or home page, for ENGR 351 and CE 310 are linked to the authors home page (Chevalier 1997). In both courses, the syllabus and class schedule are available for viewing. All homework and programming assignments are also posted. A class "bulletin board" is used to post miscellaneous messages to students that range from hints on homework. solutions, quiz solutions, additional problems and pictures of the students' children.

All of the course notes are prepared using Microsoft Power Point® and are available from the web site for downloading. Students are also provided with a direct link to Microsoft in order to download a free viewer which allows students access to the lecture notes without purchasing the software. In ENGR 351, many of these lectures include annotation to illustrate keys aspects of the thought processes behind numerical methods. Access to the course notes is intended to facilitate the teaching and learning process. By providing the notes, the amount of writing of complex diagrams, lengthy text, and elaborate equations by the professor, and copying by the students is reduced. Using a similar strategy, Neu (1996) reviews the use of overheads and multimedia in the classroom. He points out that while these techniques can be effective in increasing the amount of material covered, there is a serious risk that it will cause the students to lose interest in short order. Therefore, the strategy has been to provide the problems statements in the notes, without the solutions. Time is taken in class for students to solve problems after the theory has been introduced. During this time, students are encouraged to interact with each other and the professor. After a reasonable period of time, the solution is presented. By allowing the students an opportunity to apply the theory after presenting it in class, the subsequent note taking reinforces the learning and retention of knowledge. The lecture notes are presented in class on black and white transparencies, which do not provide the color and annotation available to the viewer through the software. To fully utilize this technology and other multimedia capabilities in the classroom, the lecture halls must be renovated to include computers, display panels and overhead projectors at a minimum. Due to the popularity of printing these notes on university printers in past semesters, it became necessary and economical to provide a complete set of the notes through a local copy vendor.

Spreadsheet and Fortran models may also be downloaded from the site. The spreadsheet models can be opened directly using the appropriate software. The Fortran code is written and downloaded in ASCII, which makes it convenient for students to modify, compile and execute. Data sets (in ASCII format) are also downloaded from the web site for analysis. A direct link to the instructors e-mail is provided from the instructors main page, and through the web sites for each course. In addition, graduate and undergraduate student assistants have direct e-mail links, and links to their individual web sites. These student web sites range from a basic page with information on office location and hours to full resumes.

All students are required to obtain an e-mail account, and to submit their e-mail addresses for compilation in a class mailing list. This list can in turn be used to contact students in the case of class cancellation or special notices. Students have subsequently used e-mail with the instructor for a wide range of communications, such as requesting appointments, asking basic questions concerning class work, and relaying their reasons for class absence. In addition, some assignments are submitted as attached documents. This capability has been more fully explored by Ray (1997a). In addition to posting lectures for downloading, Ray also posts lecture material for direct viewing (1997b).

It should be noted that a course web site provides the additional benefit of allowing students interested in the course to view course information beyond the catalog description. Professors may also use the home page to provide links to professional and technological information related to the course. Another beneficial use of the web site is to introduce a personal side of the professor to the students, by including graphics and links to subjects of personal interest or a resume. This provides the opportunity for students to relate to the professor outside of the course, which strengthens elements of mentoring, in addition to displaying professional credentials the students traditionally do not have direct access to.

At the end of the Spring 1996 semester, both classes were asked to complete an informal survey to help evaluate the use of the web site and the computer in the engineering classes overviewed for this paper. The questions ranged from rating the use of various aspects of computer usage, the frequency of viewing and downloading material and the benefits of computer usage. In addition, the formal class evaluation conducted by the university is considered.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A total of 51 students responded to the informal survey in CE 310 and 47 students responded in ENGR 351. It should be noted that this informal survey is, in a sense, a pilot survey. The questionnaire may need to be revised for future use after analyzing the responses. A summary of the survey is reported in Table 1 - 4. In both classes, over 70% of the students surveyed reported that the computer was used more in this class when compared to other classes (Table 1). This response should be taken into account when reviewing the results of the surveys. Various aspects of computer usage (i.e. overall use of computer, use of specific software) were rated on a scale of 0-4, with the score of zero equivalent to useless and a score of 4 equivalent to very useful). This scale is also appropriate since students' grade point averages are based on a 4 point scale, thus allowing a correlation between this score and a grade. Table 2 shows the results of this ranking. The two lowest scores in Table 2 are somewhat discerning. The lowest score (2.0) is associated with writing computer programs in the Numerical Methods course (ENGR 351). In this course, student are required to write computer programs. Since a course in Fortran is required for the course, students generally write these programs in Fortran, although they are allowed to write in other high power computer languages such as C or Basic. The second lowest score (3.06) is associated with the use of word processing in the Environmental Engineering course (CE 310 ). In this course, students are required to prepare laboratory reports using a word processing and spreadsheet programs. The purpose of these reports is in part to strengthen the student's written communication skills. Yet the use of a word processor in the course is rated low when compared to the other ratings. Although one cannot draw the conclusion on such a limited sample that students do not recognize the need to develop strong report writing skills, it is interesting to note the difference in scores. Of note, Fortran was not used in CE 310 . With the exception of writing code, which was generally done using an ASCII editor, word processing was not used in ENGR 351. Because a number of the students in these courses have not used computers in general, or the software used in these course in particular, a computer workshop is presented outside of the class. In the survey, 67% and 72% rated this workshop very useful (4.0).

Tables 3-4 overview the use of the web site for downloading and viewing material. Homework and computer programming assignments required programs and data posted on the web. The fact that less than 90% of the students download this material indicates that students must be sharing downloaded information. In both classes, students received a hard copy package outlining the homework and computer assignments for the semester. This same material was also posted for cross referencing on the course web site. Despite the fact that the students had a hard copy of the material, 75% and 89% of the students surveyed (CE 310 and ENGR 351 respectively) downloaded this information. Since the material is written in HTML, one can assume that the information was sent directly to a printer. Students also received a copy of the syllabus and a tentative course schedule at the beginning of the semester. As in the homework and computer assignments, 16% and 47% of the students printed this material from the web sites also. Of note, 10% and 6% respectively downloaded everything.

Although not implemented in the courses reviewed for this paper, these results have led to reducing the paper copy material presented to students. This semester (Spring 1997), only the syllabus was handed out the first day of class. All other material is posted at the web site. In subsequent surveys, the questions will be posed differently, asking students whether they viewed the material, printed (downloaded the material) or both. Of note, the university conducts a formal evaluation of the instructor and the course (ICE). CE 310 was taught by the author prior to using the web site (Fall 1995), during the initial development of the web site (Spring 1996), and the semester evaluated in this paper (Fall 1996). However, the ICE scores for these three semesters do not indicate a trend supporting, or discouraging, the use of the web site.

Similar results are reported by Starrett (1996), which reports on the use of the internet in two junior-senior level required electrical engineering courses. In her courses however, students were required to write a report in the form of a WWW page. Of note, her paper also provides an introduction to the terminology of world wide web (WWW) sites.

SUMMARY

Web sites for undergraduate course provide a dynamic forum for disseminating course material, integrating emerging technologies and effectively presenting additional information to the classroom. This paper has outlined the approach taken with two junior-senior level engineering course, and discussed the approach taken through several other university web sites. The informal survey of the students' experience and use of the web site encourage the further use and development of the approach.

REFERENCES

Chevalier, L.R., 1997. http://howard.engr.siu.edu/civil/Cheval/chevalier.html.

Neu, E.C., 1996. Computers and Overheads vs. Multimedia in the Classroom. ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings, June, Washington D.C.

Ray, B.T., 1997a. The Internet and Engineering Course. IEEC 1997 Conference Proceedings. Chicago, IL.

Ray, B.T., 1997b. http://howard.engr.siu.edu/civil/Ray/Classes/ENGR301I/301INotes.htm

Starrett, S.K., 1996. A Beginner's Approach to Teaching with the Internet. ASEE 1996 Annual Conference Proceedings, June, Washington D.C.

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