Case Studies on Remote Practicals: Download

We have created a paper on remote laboratory teaching in press with an engineering education journal. It contains 20 short case studies on what we did to quickly move our in-lab practical activities to Remote Practicals. Many of the departmental staff rapidly pitched in to creating this work, which is why there are 19 authors. 

The accepted paper can be downloaded from the International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education; Remote Practicals in the Time of Coronavirus, a Multidisciplinary Approach.

For those interested only in referencing it, the abstract is:

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universities across the world have curtailed face to face teaching. Associated with this is the halt to the delivery of the practical experience required of engineering students. The Multidisciplinary Engineering Education (MEE) team at The University of Sheffield have responded to this in an efficient and effective way by recording the laboratory experiences and putting videos, quizzes and data online for students to engage with. The focus being on ensuring Learning Outcomes for modules and courses have been preserved. Naturally, practical skills cannot be easily provided using this approach, but it is an effective way of getting students to interact with real data, uncertainty and equipment which they cannot access directly .

A number of short case studies from across the range of engineering are provided to inspire and guide other educators in how they can move experiments on line in an efficient and effective manner.

 

No student feedback is available at the time of writing, but anecdotal evidence is that this approach is at least acceptable for students and a way of collecting this is suggested. The effort that has gone into this approach and the artefacts produced will support student learning after the initial disruption of the lockdown has passed.

 

We hope that it will provide some inspiration for people who would like to continue delivering a reasonable experimental experience for their students but do not know where to start.