The Open Ended Laboratory for Measurement of Communication Skill for Chemical/Biochemical Engineering Students

The highest rates of evasion and dropout on the Biochemical Engineering major at Federal University of Rio Grande are observed during the first semesters of the undergraduate degree, in which are offered the courses that compose the basic cycle of Engineering and are the foundation for the advanced courses. Literature confirms that entering the university can be a very stressful and life changing process, reinforcing the need of special institutional attention to the freshmen. As an alternative to fight this negative scenario and promote integration among the students, a series of activities were proposed through the Program of Incentive to Academic Activities of Biochemical Engineering Students (PAIEB), supported by the Institutional Program of Student Development (PDE-FURG). During the school year of 2016, PAIEB offered a series of testimonies of juniors and seniors about their experiences on college (primary action), in addition to motivational speeches, and time management workshops (secondary action). To evaluate the activities and identify punctual problems to take directed actions, opinion and reflection surveys were conducted to all students that participated in the program activities. It was found that difficulty on time management and demotivation were key problems among the freshmen. In addition, the evasion level in 2016 remained stable when compared to the 2015 level (about 17%) and decreased roughly 3% when compared to 2014, and the retention level within the freshmen year did not show significant decrease. Therefore, the answers to the surveys applied showed that the program is helping on freshman interest and motivation and helped identifying actual problems representing that PAIEB could be working, in this case, as a complementation the recurrent traditional learning and education. Moreover, data collected from the university database implied that the program needs to be amplified and intensified to help decreasing evasion and retention among the Biochemical Engineering students.

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Engineering Students’ Perceptions and Acceptance of the Online Flipped Classroom for Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic

IIUM Journal of Educational Studies ◽

10.31436/ijes.v9i3.407 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 52-62

Author(s):

Nor Fadhillah Mohamed Azmin ◽

Mohd Firdaus Abd Wahab ◽

Farah Ahmad ◽

Ani Liza Asnawi ◽

Ahmad Zamani Jusoh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Online Learning ◽

Flipped Classroom ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Flipped Learning ◽

Biochemical Engineering ◽

Effective Manner ◽

Class Meetings ◽

Academic Courses ◽

University Lecturers ◽

Selection Of

This article reports on the results of an open-response survey sent out to IIUM Engineering students to elicit their thoughts and views about learning their courses online via the flipped learning mode. The decision to take academic courses online was brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced many sectors, including the education sector, to either cease operations or make changes to their approaches. Hence the objective of the survey was to explore Biochemical Engineering students’ perceptions and acceptance of online flipped learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Responses were collected from 80 Year 2, 3 and 4 students of Engineering at the IIUM. The results showed an overwhelming acceptance of online flipped learning among the students where only a small percentage of 2.7% completely rejected it as a preferred online learning mode. A majority of the students expressed a reserved acceptance (64.9%) of it, while 27% accepted it unconditionally. A major concern that emerged from the findings was uncurated and poor selection of videos for students to study before class meetings. This suggests that the flipped classroom approach can result in ineffective online learning if it is not designed carefully. The findings have significant implications on the technological skills and pedagogical readiness of university lecturers to design and deliver online flipped learning in an effective manner.

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ELT IN INDIA IN CONTEXT TO THE ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Towards Excellence ◽

10.37867/te090212 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 93-100

Author(s):

Heera Rajwani

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Communication Skills ◽

English Language ◽

Engineering Students ◽

Communication Skill ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Language Games ◽

Teaching English ◽

Good Communication ◽

Good Communication Skill

Language is a tool of communication where as a good presentation is a trick of the personality. If both are combined then it creates a masterpiece. In this 21 century no one can be deprived of English language. English is taught in our country as L1, L2 or L3, and as a foreign language. Whatever the scenario was prevailing in the olden days now is totally changed and a teacher of English faces lot of challenges in India. This paper deals with the importance of teaching English to fulfill the growing demands of English. The lacunae of teaching English in India are discussed. The challenges before today’s teachers in present day in ELT with context to the Engineering students are taken up in this study. Particularly the students of engineering are very much in need of a good communication skill. If they are not developing the skill then it is so difficult to exist. As someone has rightly said that the fittest can survive. The way in which students can put their learning into practice in day-to-day use to fulfill their practical demands through effective communication skills apart from gaining command over English language is highlighted. This paper also deals with various language games which are introduced in teaching to create interest of students in learning English language apart from conventional learning. This paper also throws light on the need of English language teaching for engineering students.

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