The objective of the project was to add a new inquiry-based module to the CE 360 course at Iowa State to introduce students to geohazards and allow them to explore through experimental activities the consequences of such hazards on the built environment. This new curriculum module utilized an augmented reality (AR) sandbox and 3D printing. Students worked in groups to evaluate a geohazard or documented case study. Each team designed their own experiments using the AR Sandbox and 3D printed terrain, a cityscape and/or infrastructure. The teams created a hypothesis and design for their experiments. Once the experiments were conducted in the AR sandbox, students documented the results and created a video presentation explaining the technical concepts, demonstration of the use of technology and learning outcomes.
Implementation
The implementation of the new module occurred during the Spring 2023 semester. While the principal investigators received positive feedback from the students regarding the new activity, they did note some areas of improvement for future implementations. This first implementation occurred in a class that was not taught by either of the two principal investigators. As a result, they were not able to observe the issues or provide additional guidance regarding the project and its expectations during the course of the semester. Thus, if they could back in time and re-do the project, they would opt to implement into a class that one of them was teaching. This would allow me to better explain the expectations while determining the best documents (handouts, lectures, etc.) that would help other instructors in future implementations.
Assessment
The principal investigators believed that the project could be improved in a few ways in the future. Specifically, they would introduce the project and its expectations earlier in the semester. As part of this introduction, they would warn the students of the outside time that this would require suggesting strongly that they make better use of the extra time at the end of the laboratory sessions to complete group work and ensure progress towards completion. Additionally, they would add intermediate deliverables throughout the semester as a way of checking student progress on the project.
Materials Developed
The curriculum is being developed into an Open Educational Resource (open curriculum module, a laboratory workbook, and lesson plan structured around inquiry-based learning), which will be disseminated widely within the Engineering Education community through listservs, websites, conference presentations and journal publications.
The module includes a laboratory workbook for students and an instructor lesson plan (project description and handout, presentation slides explain the project, videos of example projects, sample homework and exam questions, and grading rubrics) structured around inquiry-based learning.
The team is working on analyzing the data collected during the first implementation. After modifications are made, the team plans to share the revised curriculum module through TeachEngineering and USCUGER. The team will share the links to the content created once the curriculum is published.