Abstract:

x Based Learning (xBL), where x can be Case, Problem, Project, Team, among others, are main drivers for realizing teaching and learning processes centred in students. At their core, xBL approaches often use real-world examples and scenarios for students to explore, design, implement, and test working solutions. Working products or prototypes can be used in distinct student centred teaching and learning methodologies. For instance, a modular project can be configured to create challenges for designing, implementing and testing distinct approaches in courses of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), more specifically in courses of electronics, informatics, and industrial engineering and management.

In this paper, we explain how live data originated by a University/Industry project, deployed for real usage, is being employed for fostering students engagement and experimentation improving the teaching and learning processes. The University/Industry project output used in this study is an automated water tank for a toilet featuring a digital water level sensor, a servo motor, a capacitive touch sensor, and a microcontroller featuring WiFi capabilities. The micro-controller is the most relevant component for the teaching and learning process:
(1) reads the capacitive sensor for user inputs for short and full flush commands;
(2) moves the servo motor for controlling the water output valve;
(3) reads the water level sensor to evaluate how much water as discharge; and
(4) sends sensor and duty cycle information to a data server via WiFi.

The actual product is used as a benchmark for students to compare their solutions, and the project has been piloted in different academic areas as illustrated next:
- in Electronics courses, students are given challenges such as designing printed circuit boards (PCB) for new physical formats, driving motors with distinct characteristics such as more powerful or plain direct current (DC) motor that needs further electronics to operate correctly etc.. They can also be challenged to rewrite small modules of the micro-controller code in order to change working parameters such as soften the servo acceleration, or speeding it up, implement complex duty cycles for testing the robustness of hardware, detect water leakages or report other errors, among other.
- in Informatics courses, examples of assignments are rewriting small modules of the micro-controller code, just as in Electronics courses, but also rewrite the format of data passed to the data server (JSON, XML, RDF, plain data) or define warning triggers in the data server. In more advanced challenges, students can be challenged to write a data compression algorithm, perform data analysis to predict patterns such as operation failures, busier usage hours, and create new services.
- in Industrial Engineering and management exercises concern monitoring of indicators for process flow, variability and sustainability implications.

The implementation of the pilot exercises offers gains in the level of engagement of students, and in the improvement of their ability understand the applications of course content, while also contributing to the development of behavioural competencies such as collaboration, critical thinking and time management. The paper describes the development of the pilots, offering guidelines for their replication and extension across academic fields, and contributing to the debate on the implementation of xBL.

Keywords:

XBL, product prototype, STEM, active learning.