May 2024
Letter from the Guest Editor
The End of the Semester is Just the Beginning
By: Badri Roysam, University of Houston
Dear Colleagues,
The (hopefully happy) end of the Spring semester is the perfect window of opportunity to ensure student success in the Fall semester. Let us talk about how we can make the best of it. As we are all aware, students are less prepared for our rigorous courses compared to the pre-pandemic period, and this problem will challenge our discipline for the next decade since the pandemic affected the entire K-12 pipeline. Our instructors continue to be challenged on effective ways to cope with this changed student pipeline.
The overarching concern among Provosts and Presidents is student success. Lurking under this lovely-sounding phrase is the “DWIF Rate” – the rate at which students are receiving a failing grade, dropping out, or unable to complete the semester’s work. Courses with high DWIF rates are increasingly under scrutiny, placing the instructors and chairs under pressure to act. It can also be a source of tension since instructors are concerned about maintaining high standards in the face of a changed student body.
It is increasingly common for many of our students to be under-prepared for one or more courses they are taking. This could be due to a weak K-12 education, becoming rusty after working in industry for a while, over-reliance on online tools, lack of a concept memorization culture, lack of discipline or study skills, and other reasons. Under-preparedness is especially a concern in mathematics, basic sciences, and programming skills required for engineering courses. Under-preparedness in pre-requisite topics can occur even when the student has passed the pre-requisite courses. In these and other cases, the student is often unaware of his/her under-preparedness and is surprised by his/her poor performance in a mid-term examination.
Solution: A pre-semester quiz is a reliable “wake-up” tool for detecting under-preparedness and directing students to corrective resources.
Course overload is another common problem that can affect even the prepared students. Taking too many courses during a semester is a recipe for disaster, especially if the student becomes sick/injured or faces a family emergency. Often, students may be overloaded because of economic reasons.
Solution: Directing student advisors to flag and counsel overcommitted students is helpful.
The current generation is students faces many distractions, and often lack old-fashioned study skills. Digital distractions especially cell phones are especially bad since students can be using them furtively in an active classroom. Many students have never been taught how to study, especially the importance of learning by doing, and actively memorizing basic concepts. Contemporary students lack the intense engagement needed to learn effectively.
Solution: Instructors should be relying less on lectures, and more on activities, so students learn actively by doing rather than by reading passively. Not providing corrective/supplemental review, or even a mini “boot camp” on pre-requisite topics is a correctable problem.
Interestingly, course instructors are also subject to weaknesses. First, many instructors may be using teaching methods that were fine 5 years ago but have become sub-optimal in the current context. Many instructors are inflexibly set in their ways and unable/unwilling to make improvements/changes.
Solution: Changing course instructors is the most effective way to induce adaptation and change since faculty are often change-resistant.
Instructors who may not be sufficiently knowledgeable of how the human brain learns, how to improve student engagement or use outdated/ineffective pedagogic techniques/philosophies. They often do not provide sufficient/formative feedback. Often, the course design is outdated or sub-optimal. They are often not leveraging methods to improve student engagement and retention
Solution: Encouraging faculty to read books like the following (perhaps lending a copy of it) can go a long way. These books are also discussed on many podcasts and this may be effective as well.
- “Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning” by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel, Harvard University Press, 2014.
- “Uncommon Sense Teaching” by Barbara Oakley, Beth Rogowsky, and Terrence J. Sejnowski, Penguin Random House, 2021.
Our educational system has a long-standing drawback in that we are not providing opportunities for reflection and learning from mistakes to our students. Usually, we grade student exams and leave it at that. This is a missed opportunity for students and instructors alike. Incorporating a “second chance” initiative can improve student learning and pass rates. Students must reflect on their mistakes and make an effort to correct them.
Solution: Incentivizing instructors to provide “second chance” opportunities to students may be effective for the “high DWIF” courses.
Many of the strategies noted above are difficult to scale.
Solution: Electronic textbooks (Zybooks) provide some of the needed tools for our instructors and students. Like all tools, it takes skillful use combined with complementary pedagogic strategies to achieve the desired outcomes. In case you are unfamiliar, an electronic textbook is an electronic version of a conventional textbook that, in addition to the subject matter, end-of-chapter exercises, and appendices, contains built-in animations, interactive learning modules, quizzes, detailed solutions, integration with computational tools like MATLAB, and importantly, automated grading tools. Zybooks is only one of many companies that provide electronic textbooks, along with Top Hat (https://tophat.com ). Many of the traditional publishers, notably Pearson (https://www.pearson.com/en-us/higher-education.html ), and McGraw-Hill (https://www.mheducation.com/highered/home-guest.html ) provide many such products.
In my own teaching of Signals and Systems, I have found value in using the Zybooks version of the University of Michigan’s free PDF textbook that provides built-in interactive learning capabilities. In a nutshell, I require my students to study the content of each lecture in advance using the Zybook. This helps address student under-preparedness and improves student engagement in the classrooms (ask better questions and understand the answers better). At the end of the semester, the Zybook provides me with a spreadsheet of student effort scores, and this counts for 10% of the student’s grade, a powerful “grade-affecting” motivator as you can imagine. My students and I see this as a win-win proposition. I wonder if we are entering a new age of synergy between the free textbook movement and the commercial world.
What is your experience on this topic?
ECE Conversations
Do you have an initiative in your department worth sharing? We would love to feature your efforts in the next ECE Source newsletter. Increasingly, our articles are in the form of the ECE Conversations video podcast. It is friendly, authentic, personal, and natural.
Do you have interesting initiatives in progress at your department? We would love to feature your efforts in the next ECE Source newsletter. Increasingly, our articles are in the form of the ECE Conversations video podcast. It is friendly, authentic, personal, and natural. At the conference, we plan to record a series of in-person ECE Conversations in a podcast style. Would you be interested in participating? See you there!
Here are some of the topics of current interest for future ECE Conversations:
- The impacts of AI on ECE education and research;
- Strategies and Experiences in meeting the semiconductor re-shoring challenge;
- The growing footprint of healthcare-related research in ECE departments;
- Growing the workforce for the future electronics-intensive defense industry;
- The new ECE Chair experience, the ups, and the downs;
- Teaching engineering values; and
- Strategies and best practices for developing future ECE faculty.
As always, we welcome short articles from ECE department heads & faculty on topics of broad interest to our community.
Wishing you a happy new Spring Semester,
Badri Roysam, D.Sc., Fellow IEEE, Fellow AIMBE
Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor
Chair, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department
University of Houston
Houston, Texas 77204-4005
Phone: 713-743-1773
Email: broysam@uh.edu