An Evaluation of HigherEd 2.0 Technologies in Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Courses - Winter 2012

Oct 15, 2026

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Between 2006 and 2010, sophomore engineering students at four universities were exposed to HigherEd 2.0 web 2.0 tools integrated into undergraduate mechanical engineering courses. Students across sites reported that the technologies were useful for their learning, with video solutions receiving the highest ratings. When implemented as intended, the course blog supported asynchronous discussion and collaboration, helping students obtain timely support from peers and instructors. Overall, technology use showed a positive impact on learning and collaboration.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages29

Reading Time1 h 13 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Background

Introduction

Literature Review

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WINTER 2012 An Evaluation of HigherEd 2.0 Technologies in Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Courses AMY ORANGE WALTER HEINECKE and EDWARD BERGER University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA CHARLES KROUSGRILL Purdue University West Lafayette, IN BORJANA MIKIC Smith College Northampton, MA and DANE QUINN University of Akron Akron, OH ABSTRACT Between 2006 and 2010, sophomore engineering students at four universities were exposed to technologies designed to increase their learning in undergraduate engineering courses. Our findings suggest that students at all sites found the technologies integrated into their courses useful to their learning. Video solutions received the most positive feedback and were found to be the most beneficial to the students. When used as intended, the course blog provides a discussion tool for the students allowing for asynchronous collaboration. The inclusion of technology in engineering courses has the potential to positively impact student learning and collaboration. Students find the availability of video solutions very helpful to their learning and when the course blog is used by enough students, it provides an easy way for students to receive assistance from their peers and instructors. Keywords: evaluation, technology, Web 2.0 WINTER 2012 1 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION An Evaluation of HigherEd 2.0 Technologies in Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Courses BACKGROUND Introduction As a result of the National Research Council’s 1999 report Transforming Undergraduate Education is Science, Math, Engineering, and Mathematics, and other research and reports documenting the need for change in undergraduate STEM education (NSF, 2000; Reeves et al. , 2004; Duderstadt, 2004; Stage and Kinzie, 2009; NSF, 2011), many institutions of higher education are making efforts to reform undergraduate STEM education. Technology plays a role as an agent of change in these reforms, often as a catalyst or an enabler of active learning (Yadav et al. , 2007) . As a result of these reforms some faculty have been making greater efforts to innovate instructional approaches by integrating technology into undergraduate engineering courses. Students have also indicated that the use of technology is a vital part of a high quality undergraduate engineering education. The HigherEd 2.0 (HED2) program is a pedagogical and technology framework for teaching STEM courses using modern web 2.0 tools. The long-term goals of the program are to deploy web 2.0 tools in the classroom, evaluate their effectiveness in supporting learning goals, and thereby develop and disseminate the pedagogical best practices for their use in higher education. New electronic content is being developed for undergraduate courses and to employ significant technology in the course curricula. As a part of the evaluation of HigherEd. 2.0 we sought to understand how students’attitudes about technology usage correlate with their course performance. We also expected to learn the most useful, and least useful, types of technology content for the students. Our goal was to find the combination of traditional (i.e. lecture-style) and technology-assisted instructional tools which deliver the most educational benefit to the students. Four universities participated in the evaluation over a multi-year period. Research questions included: how does the technology impacts student learning, what are students’ attitudes towards the technologies, to what degree are the technologies used by students, and does the use of technology lead to an increase in student collaboration? Across multiple semesters, each project partner used HED2 technologies in their classes, and the primary tools were blogs, podcasts, threaded discussions, various types of video solutions, and animations. Each class was conducted in a synchrono

FAQs

What time period and student group were evaluated in the study?

Between 2006 and 2010, sophomore engineering students at four universities were exposed to HigherEd 2.0 technologies integrated into undergraduate courses.

Which technology type received the most positive feedback?

Video solutions received the most positive feedback and were considered the most beneficial to students.

How does the course blog contribute to student collaboration?

Used as intended, the course blog provides an asynchronous discussion tool that enables collaboration between students.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk