Ashmun Express: A Mobile-based Study Application for STEM Students

Abstract

There has been an increase in the usage of technology in classrooms nationwide, from smartboards to study applications. The dearth of the latter as a part of the curriculum for STEM students in higher education and particularly at a historically black university prompted two professors in biology and computer science to develop a mobile application that focuses on math applications in a variety of biological fields. The prime objective of the mobile app - codenamed Ashmun Express - is to serve as a tool for early career STEM majors, almost all of whom have to take Introductory Biology and Elementary Statistics to provide them a chance to work on examples, view tutorials and take quizzes at their leisure to enhance their classroom experience. Up until Spring 2020, the application was developed and maintained solely as an iOS App, with Swift serving as the primary language as Apple products are common in the educational setting. A recent survey among our students showed that of 26 students in a class in which the app was tested, 17 or 65% used an iPhone or an iPad. Additionally, there are sound development reasons to focus on one platform or another. Unfortunately, there were problems like the absence of tests for classes/methods and refactoring issues for the student developers. Also, users found it difficult to navigate through the app and complained about designs and other minor issues. Ultimately, the project was temporarily halted and a new application is currently being designed and developed with the same objectives. It will only have a different framework and personnel on the project. The new path for the project includes switching to React Native for cross-platform mobile development and a goal to create a functional product for evaluation for final exam review.This change also follows best practices in app development as described by Wardynski1 and would serve all students with a mobile phone. Future plans would include creating a Professor functionality that helps the professor see the efforts made by the students and assign grades based on work completed in the app.