Improving Students Engagement with Active Learning in Engineering Optimization Lectures

Paper in proceeding, 2021

In optimisation, as for learning, the synthesises of previous knowledge and current information is essential to achieve defined objectives. The students' objectives are to fulfil the course's intended learning outcomes and possibly, at the same time, develop their knowledge, skills,
and attitudes within the subject. The purpose of this work is to incorporate a more collaborative learning environment with active learning activities in the classroom to improve student learning opportunities, their perception of the course and their interest in the subject of optimisation. Within the CDIO initiative, active learning or experiential learning is stated as a key factor in engaging students directly in thinking and problem-solving activities. This can apply to different teaching activities such as assignments, lectures, and assessments. With active learning, the purpose is to involve students more actively in the learning process instead of relying on passive information transfer. Active learning methods aim to facilitate the students' process of creating their understanding of the topic by reflecting, questioning, conjecturing, evaluating and make connections between ideas whilst drawing on ideas, experiences and knowledge of others. In this work, diverse activities for incorporating more interactive learning in the classroom have been implemented in different course lectures, activities such as think pair-share, mind maps, multiple-choice questions, incomplete hands and more. An evaluation of the students' perception of the course and the various activities was carried out at the end of the course. The most considerable improvement was with the overall impression of teaching. That improved between the years from 3.10 to 3.57. The most appreciated activity was the
think-pair-share approach, which gave the students a cognitive break from the lecture slides to discuss the topic. However, the response rate was limited but did indicate the students' perspective and what was appreciated. The results will provide a good base for future development.