Keywords smartphone personal electronics mobile classroom engagement Flipping

Keywords: smartphone, personal electronics, mobile, classroom engagement Flipping the Smartphone: Making Personal Electronics Work for the Educator Patrick Browning, Ph. D. Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources West Virginia University

Why? • Smartphones are everywhere and are becoming a more frequent way in which humans interact with each other and with the internet • Many have tried, with varying degrees of success, to eliminate smartphones from the classroom – in the long term this approach is not a likely solution to the “problem” of ubiquitous mobile smart devices • A virtually unstoppable presence in nearly every classroom, the problem may boil down to a simple question: Can educators effectively “flip” smartphones and use them productively in the education process? • The objective of this project was to make the presence of smartphones a deliberate part of the classroom experience to determine if such devices could in fact be used to improve the learning (and even teaching) process for engineering education Shutterstock

When? • Incorporated smartphones in the classroom at the beginning of the 2016 calendar year in two well-documented undergraduate courses: – MAE 102 Introduction to Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Design – 19 freshman, computer lab facilities – MAE 336 Compressible Aerodynamics – 79 juniors, general class room with standard A/V equipment • Material that worked into the new media content was based on much older material from multiple years’ worth of teaching the same courses • The approach was applied to fullsemester courses (i. e. , 15 -week nonsummer courses)

Where? • This is the first time that this approach has been used in the MAE department, but there are several others using the same type of approach at WVU’s main campuses in Morgantown, West Virginia • For this particular project, a commercial system was used to support interaction through the students’ smartphones at a moderate cost to the students • The project was meant to engage students for the duration of an entire course, but it is conceivable that such a system could be implemented across an entire curriculum • The approach also lends itself very well to rapid development of online and distance-learning courses • Early results of this effort will be presented to the MAE department faculty for potential use in additional courses

What? Classrooms full of engineering students ready to learn Effective and engaging teaching methodologies Proficient and well prepared engineering professionals • Activities and materials developed include rapid subject review (short term/ comprehension), quizzes (medium term/retention), discussion boards (class wide interaction), and interactive lecture notes, diagrams, images, and movies • Theory of change – Our mission: Provide “state-of-the-art education of highly proficient engineers who are well prepared for successful professional practice” – What do we start with? Classrooms filled with engineering students who are ready to learn – How can we reach our mission? Smartphone integration in the classroom can provide one of the most efficacious tools to make this happen in two specific ways: 1) Engage material using familiar neural pathways and synapses, 2) Displace distractive smartphone use with productive use of the exact same smartphone • What has worked really well? Rapid concept recapitulation (about every 5 to 10 minutes) Vary levels of task difficulty in interactive content Add some degree of levity to interactive material Use a forum-style discussion tool where appropriate (e. g. , excellent for real time engineering ethics, lifelong learning, and global competency discussions) – Link to additional support media through the smartphones (e. g. , You. Tube videos of flow phenomena are invaluable tools to ignite passionate interest) – –

Prognosis? • Documenting impact – Impact of the project on course objectives and outcomes has been documented through comparison of covered content and grades: slightly more content was covered while GPA’s remained about the same – Student assessments have also been used in both courses to compare to other similar systems (e. g. , “clickers”) and also to standard classroom formats – Students were overwhelmingly positive about the chance to use their mobile devices in the classroom, even when they had to pay for the technology • Plans to scale up involve the increased use of this approach in other courses, including laboratory and graduate-level courses • Several major challenges still remain in integrating smartphones into the classroom: – Institutional development and/or support of integrating technologies – Converting old content and generating new digital content – Preventing the use of smartphone connectivity at specific times • What advice would you like from others at FOEE? – How have others approached the use of smartphones in the classroom? – What implementation methodologies of mobile devices seem to work best? – Have others developed their own applications and at what expense?