IU SBC Fellows: Good Practices

Good Practice from Elaine M. Cooney, IUPUI

Title	Online Coursework for Rapidly Changing Fields
Course or Project	EET M200 Electronics Manufacturing
Audience	Continuing education students
Active	Fall 2001, no longer active
Background Information	The target audience of this course is adults working in the electronics manufacturing industry who wish to upgrade their skills. Many times employees might be very familiar with one particular procedure, but do not appreciate the entire assembly process. This course is appropriate for students both with and without previous college experience. Oncourse is used as the backbone of the course structure. Students must also have an “on-site mentor” at their place of work, and access to videos produced by the IPC (a standards and trade organization for the electronic assembly industry).
Teaching Challenge	The electronics manufacturing field changes very rapidly. No text book can keep up with it – by the time a book gets to press, it is woefully out of date. An on-line environment can overcome this obstacle by utilizing the resources already on the Web, but organize them in such a way that students new to the industry, or to the literature, can use them.
Good Practice	The course is divided up into 15 lessons, each with a link to its own page on the “Schedule” page of Oncourse. Each lesson has the following sections: Objectives (for the lesson) Notes (typically a link to a Power Point slide show) Resources (links or videos the student is expected to view) Assignment (both “written” and “hands on”) References The student will view the notes and resources with special attention to the material that aids in the completion of the lesson objectives. Then the on-site mentor will assist the student with the completion of the “hands on” lab assignment. The lab assignment results and any other assigned work are then sent to the course instructor for grading. PowerPoint slides can be presented two ways. The file can be saved as a Web site – with each slide as an entry in a frame. Or the file can be saved as a *.ppt file, which the student can download and view on his or her own computer. Students with PowerPoint prefer downloading the file, because it allows for various viewing and printing options.
Impact	This method gives the students an excellent structure with which to explore the information about a particular topic. The notes give students enough background to comprehend the trade literature. The assignments and lab experiences allow the student to apply the new knowledge. The on-site mentor is crucial for the success of the lab assignments, as well as retaining the student in the course. If the students have not taken an on-line course before, the technology and expectations can be daunting. The mentor gives the course a human face, and someone “real” to talk to about challenges.
Assessment	During the beta test of this course, comments from students were collected. It was their suggestion to make the PowerPoint slides available in both .html and .ppt formats. Students also reported that the mentors were helpful in making connections within the company to find the equipment necessary to complete the lab assignments.
Keywords	Presenting content, accessibility, motivating student participation, real-world problems, problem-based learning
Technical Format	PowerPoint, Oncourse
Relevant URLs	http://www.iupui.edu/~eet360/Newfiles/lesson5.htm

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