Developing and Assessing MATLAB Exercises for Active Concept Learning

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and assessment of MATLAB exercises in a communication systems MOOC to enhance active concept learning, addressing challenges of remote experiential learning in engineering education.

Contribution

It presents a systematic approach to designing and evaluating MATLAB-based exercises integrated with MOOC platforms for improved engineering education.

Findings

MATLAB exercises improved students' understanding of concepts.

Course design tools positively impacted both instructors and students.

Assessment showed enhanced learning performance through active exercises.

Abstract

New technologies, such as MOOCs, provide innovative methods to tackle new challenges in teaching and learning, such as globalization and changing contemporary culture and to remove the limits of conventional classrooms. However, they also bring challenges in course delivery and assessment, due to factors such as less direct student-instructor interaction. These challenges are especially severe in engineering education, which relies heavily on experiential learning, such as computer simulations and laboratory exercises, to assist students in understanding concepts. As a result, effective design of experiential learning components is extremely critical for engineering MOOCs. In this paper, we will share our experience gained through developing and offering a MOOC on communication systems, with special focus on the development and assessment of MATLAB exercises for active concept learning. Our approach introduced students to concepts using learning components commonly provided by many MOOC platforms (e.g., online lectures and quizzes), and augmented the student experience with MATLAB based computer simulations and exercises to enable more concrete and detailed understanding of the material. We describe here a systematic approach to MATLAB problem design and assessment, based on our experience with the MATLAB server provided by MathWorks and integrated with the edX MOOC platform. We discuss the effectiveness of the instructional methods as evaluated through students' learning performance. We analyze the impact of the course design tools from both the instructor and the student perspective.