MEE spends a lot of time thinking about how to do practical teaching, it is basically all we do, which means we know a thing or two about how it's done. This isn’t to say that teaching staff elsewhere aren’t equally capable but the unique remit of our department to only do practical teaching means we aren’t distracted by lectures or final year projects or tutorials or exams or exam boards or or marking exams or resit exams….etc. As well, we are exposed to a huge variety of different types of practicals across the range of engineering disciples we teach.
When the University decided to suspend face to face teaching, everyone working in the HE sector had to suddenly find methods to deliver all their teaching remotely, including practicals. Moving lectures online is actually quite easy and there lots of tools the University already owns to facilitate remote teaching. Moving practical classes to remote delivery is fraught with issues. Fortunately, MEE was well placed to quickly adapt not just because of our dedication to practical teaching but also our widespread adoption of use of online tools for our pre and post labs. The scale of our department’s translation of in-lab activities to remote delivery was significant and we have attracted attention from other educators keen to understand what we have done and how our teaching model has made it possible.
Once teaching settled down the first thing we did was collate a series of case studies. Stephen Beck led on this by inviting contributions from all over the department and we published our first paper, which can be found at https://engrxiv.org/d7rkg/. Following on from this, we began to review and consider the array of approaches MEE adopted when in-lab practicals were suspended. We came to the conclusions that there are 6 broad categories of tactics an educator can adopt to deliver remote practicals:
- Provide digital artefacts
- Simulated practicals
- Synchronous remote participation
- Asynchronous participation by proxy
- Perform procedure in alternative environment
- Remote staff support
The full paper, written by Adam Funnel, Joanna Bates, Stephen Beck and myself, can be found at https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202006.0182/v1. Here is short summary of what each of these categories mean.
Category 1: Provide digital artefacts
This method provides digital files or simply the raw information that students would have gained from an in-lab practical, by digitising and distributing these data. Examples of this would be to create still images or video of experimental observations or data to represent the readings that would have been collected from instrumentation during the experiment, either stock data from the real equipment or data that is illustrative of the system.
Category 2: Simulated Practicals
The limitation of providing artefacts is not being able to make certain decisions about how to execute an experiment. This can be overcome by creating simulations of a physical system. For example, the provision of stock data eliminates the need to develop a data capture strategy by pre-selecting appropriate values of independent variables. A simulation could generate the dependent variable based on any input independent variable. Simulations can be built with a range of sophistication. To generate numerical data, a well written spreadsheet can be produced. Deliberately introduced random errors can be programmed into the output of the spreadsheet in order to replicate data collected from real world equipment, providing the potential for students to rapidly repeat experiments multiple times to see a distribution in results. The use of 3D computer aided design (CAD) models visible on screens or fully immersive VR experiences can replicate the ability to investigate and probe physical equipment. MEE has a Digital Twin of the Diamond’s Pilot Plant.
Category 3: Synchronous remote participation
Remote access to in-lab equipment can be achieved in one of two ways. Firstly, through live demonstration, where a member of staff hosts an interactive session within the experimental facility and broadcasts this to students. This type of approach has been adopted by Gavin Williams in our Clean room to allow wider access to a highly specialised environment that can normally only accommodate a small number of students. An alternative strategy for delivering synchronous remote participation is the use of telemetry for actuation of equipment and measurement of the result. Depending on the amount of physical movement, the ability to operate the equipment remotely may be provided within its normal capability, or it may be necessary to retrofit components to create this functionality. The increasing prevalence of IoT devices opens opportunities to control and sense using relatively inexpensive products.
Category 4: Asynchronous participation by proxy
Professional process for executing practical work is to plan, in advance, the procedure to adopt. Asynchronous participation by proxy involves the work being designed by the student and executed by another person, typically a member of staff or teaching assistant, and the results reported back. The process could involve discussion between the student and person following the procedure prior to execution, to reflect on the design and documentation of the proposed process. This approach closely replicates engineering in industry, where designers submit drawings to be manufactured and test protocols to be followed. There is an opportunity for students to acknowledge the experience of operators and identify the value of using other people’s expertise as a resource.Category 5: Perform procedure in alternative environment
It may be possible to perform practical tasks outside of laboratory spaces. If explicit learning outcomes relate to the development of experimental competencies this learning can be delivered without the need to access specialist equipment. Conducting practical tasks with equipment that students are expected to own presents challenges with the control of the outcomes and equity of access within a cohort. An alternative is to provide “take home kits” that students are able to design, operate and analyse away from university space. While the range of physical concepts students will be able to investigate is limited, and the precision of the instrumentation may be poor compared to that found in a laboratory, these options provide “real” results and can be fun, engaging and inspiring.Category 6: Remote staff support
The final category is the collection of tactics that can be employed to provide remote access to the function of teaching staff, that would normally be available during in-lab practicals. Experienced practical engineering educators:- Ensure sessions run to plan and maintain students’ concentration and momentum.
- Monitor situations requiring attention to dynamically adjust methods, including safety concerns.
- Provide assistance when required to ensure all students are able to deliver the final results of the tasks or extend learning beyond the structured activity.
- Gather formal and non formal feedback about the student experience.