Abstract:

When COVID-19 health precautions called for imposing distance learning, many teachers felt alarmed. They found themselves teaching in a new paradigm that they seldom experienced before. Through the first semester in distance learning, it was evident that some passivity on the student side was introduced to the learning process. Being at home, with so much interference and only having a sporadic remote interaction with the online class can distract students. They then feel detached from the online class’s learning environment. They may thus slide involuntarily into the passivity trap.

In this research, we shed light on utilizing active learning techniques to get the students more engaged during the distance learning process. We propose a design of an online active learning experience that considers reducing passivity. It involves teamwork, presentations, group discussions, and motivational rewards among Active learning activities. The design of this learning experience addresses the Comprehension, Application, and Synthesis Levels in an Engineering Design course according to Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning. In this learning experience, the Comprehension level is assessed through formative and summative assessments, using the online Blackboard quiz system. The Application and Synthesis levels are assessed by designing and implementing an engineering project.

To assess the validity of this learning experience’s design we compared the performance of two groups of students in two consecutive semesters. The first group received traditional distance learning in the first semester. And the second group practiced the learning experience that incorporated active learning to engage students most of the time in the class, in the following semester. The results showed that the second group’s performance in terms of Comprehension and Completeness of the course's engineering project was better than that of the first group. This indicates that if the designer of the online learning experience considers reducing the passivity on the student’s side, the outcome would potentially improve.

Keywords:

Distant learning, Passivity, Active learning, Learning experience design.