Transforming the Delivery of Educational Content for Generation Z Engineering Students

PI: Katie Basinger, Co-PI: Michelle Alvarado

Award Period: 03/17/2020-12/16/2020

Abstract

Generation Z, or GenZ, is the cohort of individuals born 1996-2010 who comprise the majority of college students today. GenZ students are disrupting decades-long educational practices due to their diminishing attention spans and are forcing education delivery to adapt at a rapid pace to avoid irrelevancy. One instructional strategy is “flipped” classrooms, which reverse traditional learning environments by delivering content outside the classroom, while moving activities (e.g. homework and labs) into the classroom. To deliver the content in an online context, several attributes, such as format and design, impact the engagement of the students. Educational methods for GenZ engineering students should harness the ever-expanding technological innovations and go beyond a traditional “passive” screen-capture video. The goal of this research pilot project is to investigate the impact of active-learning educational videos with clickable content to provide real-time feedback to students. Specifically, we hypothesize that GenZ student learning outcomes and video engagement will be better with active-learning videos than with passive learning videos. The objectives of this proposal are to 1) explore video development platforms and create active-learning videos with clickable content, exercises, and real-time feedback 2) implement a pilot study for a flipped classroom with GenZ engineering students to compare both active- and passive-learning video designs; 3) design and deliver an advanced tutorial on how to integrate active-learning videos into a programming-based flipped classroom. Understanding the impact of more dynamic and engaging educational delivery will support the team’s long-term objective to develop effective methods of engineering education of GenZ students.