Outcome, economic and operational benefits of hybrid courses - A public research university perspective

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) that uses a combination of technology and pedagogical approaches to improve learning outcomes for engineering students while reducing course delivery costs. Like most public research universities, UCI faces the challenge of improving learning outcomes in the face of declining State and Federal funding. This challenge has many elements; 1) As class sizes increase, student participation is hindered and class enrollments often exceed classroom capacities; 2) A lack of immediate feedback on student learning hinders timely interventions that would otherwise help students succeed; 3) Operation of classes is burdened by administrative details that ineffectively absorb a large percentage of the available Faculty and Teaching Assistant resources; 4) Class time spent on course topics is often not proportional to the level of difficulty of the material or mapped to the non-uniform needs of the students; 5) Students have little control over the pace of learning; 6) Research-oriented faculty do not have the time or motivation required to investigate and adopt new learning technologies and methods; 7) Faculty frequently distrust unproven or unfamiliar technologies or teaching methods. To address these issues, three courses in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at a major U.S. research university were modified to include the expanded use of instructional technologies and new pedagogical practices. This included the expanded use of asynchronous online content such as video lectures, prompted and graded discussion forums, frequent quizzes and "just-in-time" reference materials and links. A key component was the use of an assessment tool aimed at providing timely feedback. These tools allowed both students and instructors to measure learning achievements in the previous week of the course and then modify the subsequent week's lectures and attendance accordingly. The courses varied in size (between 50 and 320), content area (dynamics, vibrations, and finite element analysis) and level (sophomore, junior and senior.) Courses were monitored over a two year period during which the three faculty involved met frequently with each other and with the supporting instructional design and distance learning delivery teams. The results show measurable improvements in student satisfaction, course outcomes, and operational efficiency while defining clear and convincing paths to motivate additional faculty to adopt all or some of pedagogy and online learning modalities. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2013.