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Design and Development of HyFlex Courses for Undergraduate Students

SUNY Polytechnic Institute

Description:

Finite Element Applications (MTC 476) is an undergraduate elective course for senior students in the mechanical engineering technology (MTC) department at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. This senior level elective course was redesigned as a HyFlex course. Previously this course was offered in the in-person on campus modality and involved 2.5 hours of lecture and 1.5 hours of lab work each week. This course is designed to assist engineering students to the field of finite element modeling to gain a clear understanding of the basic concepts. Theoretical aspects of Finite Element Applications (FEA) as well as some practical aspects of modeling was covered. In each chapter, the relevant basic theory was discussed first and then demonstrated using simple problems with hand calculations. These problems were followed by examples that were solved using ANSYS. It is obvious students will expect that they will receive at least same or equivalent knowledge through online compared to face to face interaction. For this reason, clear and specific learning objectives need to be set. Also, short-term plan and long-term goal of the course need to be set at the very beginning. Then we need to develop a methodology for how effective it is possible to deliver in the online system. After establishing specific learning objectives of the course, we need to determine evidence to show if students really achieved the goal or objective of the course. Student should have a clear vision of understanding what exactly they need to do to show as proof that they achieved the goal or that they are on the way to achieving the goal. For evidence, homework, quiz, project, midterm and final exam are the tools to evaluate students. Evaluation criteria or contents need to be almost the same for all modalities online. Table 1 in the PDF below summarizes HyFlex student attendance pattern for class size of 20 students. From the table it is clear the majority of the students prefer to attend in-person although online participations allowed more flexibilities. This may be due to the nature of the course.