Blended Learning: Facilitating

Change in Engineering Technology

Brenda M. Perea and Peter Lindstrom

Background

Metropolitan State University-Denver received a Department of Labor TAACCCT 3 grant with the stipulation of increasing student access to advanced manufacturing courses. To fulfill the grant requirements, MSU has taken a hard look at some of the certificates and courses in the Engineering Technology program.

This session will present MSU’s success in converting lab-based engineering courses to blended courses, including the paradigm shift of understanding just what increasing access and how that translated to blended course design

By the end of the session, each attendee will understand the challenges and successes in converting courses to blended format, while acknowledging the need to get instructor acceptance before committing to developing blended and online courses.

Before anything

started…

• Relationship building

– Conversations with involved faculty and staff

regarding blended course design and what

blended courses meant for the department

• Discussions as to how to select courses to

convert to hybrid

1. Courses impacted by CHAMP grant $$

2. Courses which could be delivered online and

still meet authentic assessments needed for

certifications

“Priming the Pump”

February 2014

Research and handouts distributed to course

development team

• CCCS CHAMP--Going Hybrid: A How-To Manual

• CHAMP Course Map template

• Module development template

Team development meetings to discuss what

existing course material actually “fit” blended

learning

Volunteers anyone?

March 2014

• Professors took a hard look at their courses:

how, why and what they were teaching

• Dr. Kalla volunteered to course map one of his

existing courses to see what/how to move the

course to blended design. Dr. He soon joined the

process

• Team meetings to discuss course maps and

what existing and new course material can be

incorporated in to a blended course

Buy-In

May 2014

• Addressed concerns and specific

challenges regarding intellectual property

• Discussions as to the benefits to MSU,

faculty and the students.

• Discussions on “flipped” classroom model

• Identified areas of content that can be

“flipped”

Module Flow

• Engagement–hooking the student into the

content—Providing why for learning

• Exploration–content delivery and student

working to understand the content

• Explanation–activities where the student should

demonstrate an understanding of the content

• Elaboration–activities where the student takes

the content learning and expands and applies

the information

• Evaluation–formative and summative

assessments

Collaborative

Process

Summer 2014

• Working prototype of course map and

sample blended course build

• Created draft of online portion of courses

from course maps

• Worked together to construct online

experiences of student

• Went through instructor review of final

course design and incorporated changes

Labs in Blended

Learning

Labs Created through Partnership

• Developed two designs for labs

– Course Project Labs that run parallel to

sequenced course content

• Allows for asynchronous contextualized

assessment of competencies throughout course

• Works as adaptation to equipment limitations in lab

MET1010 Manufacturing Processes

MET1200 Technical Drawing

Synchronous Labs

Second design for labs

– Synchronous labs in sequence of course

content

MET1210 Introduction to 3D Modeling

Development

Courses ready for blended learning

MET1010 Manufacturing Processes

MET1310 Principles of Quality Assurance

MET2200 Materials of Engineering

MET3215 Composite Manufacturing

MET490X Testing and Repair Advanced Composites

Structures

MET1200 Technical Drawing 1

MET1210 3D Modeling

MET390X Direct Digital Manufacturing

MET3410 Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerance

Resources and

Questions

• CHAMP

website: www.cccs.edu/champ

• COETC website:

www.cccscoetc.weebly.com

• Handouts:

• http://tinyurl.com/CHAMPHandouts

CC BY Attribution

This Workforce Solution, ”Blended Learning:

Facilitating Change in Engineering

Technology” presentation by Brenda

Perea is licensed under a Creative

Commons Attribution 4.0 International

License. Based on a work created under the

Department of Labor, TAACCCT3 grant,

permissions beyond the scope of this license

may be available at www.cccs.edu/CHAMP.