International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET) Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2017, pp. 343–349, Article ID: IJCIET_08_10_035 Available online at http://http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJCIET?Volume=8&Issue=10 ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316 © IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed A PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION K. Rajathi, R.Vinoth Kumar and G.Tamilmani Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Veltech Dr.RR & Dr.SR University ABSTRACT The objective of this effort is to incorporate various technologies into teaching learning methods to improve the learning experience of students and also to fulfill the teaching experience of faculty. The purpose of this research is also to explore the effects of innovative teaching learning strategies based on the performance of student’s grade. The experiment was done on the teaching of two courses of Computer Science and Engineering, Data Structures and Computer Networks. This two courses are based on the active learning paradigm in which students are engaged and participated actively and misconception are identified in every classes. In traditional teaching methods students are passive and there are no measures to find the attainment of minor outcomes in every hours. To address these issues we proposed pedagogical approach, which consists of Book Ends on Class Session for introducing core concepts of Data Structures and Computer networks. This method allows to conduct activity during the content delivery time. Key words: Pedagogical Approach, Misconception, Data Structures, Active Learning. Cite this Article: K. Rajathi, R.Vinoth Kumar and G.Tamilmani, A Pedagogical Approach for Engineering Education, International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 8(10), 2017, pp. 343–349. http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJCIET?Volume=8&Issue=10 1. INTRODUCTION A huge amount of research has been done about how the students shall learn. Students learn enthusiastically when they perceive and do the activities by themselves, their learning is also accelerated more when they implement. The students are also benefited when they apply their knowledge and skills, in which they can test and debug their experiment, which is self- exploration [1][2]. Thus helps the students to remember the contents because they practically implementing it. Normally in the typical classroom environment the teachers are transmitters and students are receivers, whatever the teacher says it is transfer to the students in the form of knowledge[3][4]. In that only fraction of students will gain the knowledge and will try to think and implement, rest others will just engage the class. Fig.1. shows the Traditional Teaching Learning. http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJCIET 343 [email protected] K. Rajathi, R.Vinoth Kumar and G.Tamilmani Traditional Learning Pedagogy is a challenging term, which involves activities that induce changes in the learners. It is a methodology which helps the students to develop an existing technique or to innovate new techniques. Pedagogic approaches help the teachers to deliver the content to the students in an effective manner [5]. The teachers can deliver actually what they think and what they want to say. Ultimately the goal of pedagogy is to improve the leaning methodology of students. Pedagogy methodologies are Teaching and Learning activities which make some noticeable changes in students. These kinds of methodologies make the students to innovate new ideas. Thus there are a comprehensive variety of teaching stratagems, which plays a vital role to develop the teaching methodologies at the highest level. Cooperative Learning is learning methodology[6] that involves people working in teams to accomplish a common goal, under conditions that involve both positive interdependence (all members must cooperate to complete the task) and individual and group accountability (each member is accountable for the complete final outcome). Since 1997 Veltech offers Engineering education to the society and now it has elevated to the level of Deemed University. Department of Computer Science is one of the Engineering departments in Veltech University. Data structure and computer networks are the core courses in the Computer Science and Engineering. So we had chosen these courses as representative course for pedagogical approach. Usually Students feel difficult to understand the core concepts like Linear ADT and Nonlinear ADT. They also struggle in writing algorithm and analyzing the algorithm. In the other way even if some students understand the core concept they are not able to apply those concepts in real time applications and due that they are not able to compete at the time of placement. Finally, faculties are also able to know about the attainment of minor learning outcomes during their content delivery. Fig.2. depicts the Pedagogical methods available. Figure 2 Pedagogical Methods http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJCIET 344 [email protected] A Pedagogical Approach For Engineering Education So, as a challenging issue we adopted an informal cooperative learning as a pedagogical method to deliver those two courses to the students. As a content delivery method faculty shall show a movie or video, shall give a demonstration or arrange for a guest lecture. In such cases an Informal Co-operative learning [7][8] method shall be used to instigate the students and make them cognitively active. In Informal cooperative learning, students are formed into groups and they work together in order to achieve a goal provisionally. These kinds of Ad-hoc groups will help the students to concentrate more on the studies, it also make a conducive mood for the students to learn. With the thorough discussion among the students, misunderstanding, improper understanding, gaps in understanding shall identified among themselves and it shall also be corrected. This also increases the learning experience of the students. This type of learning will be useful at the time of lecturing or direct teaching by the faculty. To resolve it, we adopted a pedagogical approach like Book Ends on session for introducing core concepts of Data structures and Flipped Class room for conducting activities. 2. PEDAGOGICAL METHODS ADAPTED 2.1. Book Ends on Class Session Method The Book Ends on class session method is similar to tradition teaching methodology, but it is a powerful Instructional Design. Table 1. Shows the sample schedule for content delivery. Tool to organize lecture in well planned manner with fixed time bound. General outcome of Book ends method for Data structures course is, even slow learners are able to understand the core concepts and they are also able to explain the concepts. In all the sessions the following activity was practiced • Writing an algorithm • Questionnaire time. 2.2. Flipped Classroom Method The flipped classroom is a pedagogical method, where revision of assignments and basic knowledge of the particular course takes place. Students are splitted into groups Table.1 Sample Schedule for Content delivery to participate in the activity. They apply their knowledge to solve the given problem. Content Delivery Student Activity Faculty Activity Student can refer and answer for 5 mins Questions from previous topic review question 10 mins Listen and interactions Motivation about topic Faculty will deliver the 15 mins Listen and / or make note concept Activity sheet will give – Towers of 10 mins Monitor and guide the student Hanoi Share answer with pear / pear team/ Discussion with students and 5 mins faculty faculty Summarize and Correlate content Help the students to correlate 5 mins with real world with real world problems http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJCIET 345 [email protected] K. Rajathi, R.Vinoth Kumar and G.Tamilmani The following activities are conducted through flipped class room for data structures course, • Poster design for LIST ADT • Learn by Act for FIFO • Worksheet for AVL trees, BST, etc At the time of conducting the activity we have to consider the following five basic fundamentals for the effective implementation of formal cooperative learning: • Encouraging interdependence • Face-to-face promotive interaction • Individual accountability/personal responsibility • Teamwork skills, • Group processing. Figure 3 Flipped Class Room We adopted both the co-operative Learning Methods. The following process was adopted. 1. Student team formed after mid of first unit. 2. 4 to 5 students per team. Diversity in performance team was formed. 3. Recorded individual in continuous assessment. 4. Involved more. Creating new environment for learning processing. 5. Daily activity like muddiest point, mind map, quizzes, writing algorithm. 6. Equal contribution of every students 7. Individual performance recorded in continuous assessment 8. Students are gifted with pen at the end of the semester. Fig.4 depicts the sample worksheet given to the students http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJCIET 346 [email protected] A Pedagogical Approach For Engineering Education Figure 4 Worksheet 3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS By adopting the Pedagogical Methodology the students were able to actively participate in the classroom activities and they are able to gain basic knowledge about the course. 3.1. Result Analysis for the academic year 2015-2016 The following table shows the result analysis of the Academic year 2015-2016. COURSE NAME : DATA STRUCTURE COURSE CODE : 1151CS102 S.NO FACULTY HANDLED APPEARED PASSED FAILED ABSENT PASS (%) 1 Mrs.K.Rajathi 53 40 11 02 76 2 Mr.Viswanathan 55 39 11 05 71 3 Mr.Vinayagam 54 38