Contribution: Practical active learning stations (PALSs)-equipped classrooms function similar to prototypical active learning classrooms (ALCs). They support student collaboration and active learning pedagogies but at a fraction of the cost. Background: Active learning pedagogies and active learning technology are revitalizing STEM education and…

Contribution: Portable learning instrumentation has become common in university classrooms and laboratories, but few publications assess the effects of these technologies on student retention. This paper addresses this under-researched connection between the use of portable learning technologies, incorporated into an Introduction to Computer…

Contribution: A first-year programming course was redesigned with a large, open-ended robotics project. The course design aligns with best practices for promoting development of students' self-efficacy in solving ill-structured software design problems. Background: From Jonassen's theory, problem-solving outcomes are dependent on the problem…

Contribution: This paper presents evidence demonstrating ways in which flexible classrooms (which have movable tables and chairs that can be rearranged into different layouts) afford active learning. It highlights the quantitative increase in active learning that occurs for one instructor and discusses how the affordances of the flexible classroom…

Contribution: An improved inverted lecturing (IIL) framework based on blending flipped lectures and hands-on experiments provides instructional benefits, compared to traditional teaching (TT) and inverted lecturing (IL), in an introductory course in digital systems. Background: IL has proven more effective than TT in improving student learning in…

Contribution: A semester-long, open-ended design project was implemented to promote intellectual development of first-year students while reinforcing event-driven/procedural programming principles. This paper describes this approach, and an evaluation strategy using Perry's model for intellectual development. The results show that students can…

In the Internet era, students have increasingly lost interest in traditional lectures; as a consequence, their learning motivation and exam performance have decreased. The widespread adoption of learner-centered teaching methods that address this issue faces certain barriers, including: 1) the significant faculty effort necessary to prepare…

This paper presents a series of novel project-based learning labs for an introductory robotics course that are developed into a semester-long Robotic Decathlon. The last three events of the Robotic Decathlon are used as three final one-week-long project tasks; these replace a previous course project that was a semester-long robotics competition.…

A two-course sequence in electromagnetics (EM) was developed in order to address a perceived lack of student learning and engagement observed in a traditional, lecture-based EM course. The two-course sequence is named VECTOR: Vitalizing Electromagnetic Concepts To Obtain Relevance. This paper reports on the first course of the sequence. VECTOR…