During the first week of November 4-10th November, took place the 69th ESTIEM Council Meeting…
Tim Drysdale from University of Edinburgh Scotland on Non-Traditional Practical Work with Natalie Wint and Neil Cooke
Growing student numbers, along with space and timetabling constraints, are limiting the number of opportunities that engineering students have to engage in practical work within their degree programmes. Such deficiencies in educational offerings have implications for the knowledge and skills that students bring to the workplace, and efforts have thus focused on the development of non-traditional practical work (NTPW).
In this episode we speak to Professor Tim Drysdale who is Chair of Technology Enhanced Science Education in the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, where he is responsible for developing an entirely new approach to online laboratories to support non-traditional online practical work activities across multiple campuses. Prior to this, he was the founding director and lead developer of the £3 Million Open Engineering Laboratory (Open University) which has attracted numerous educational awards. Along with the rest of his team, he recently won the Digital Transformation Award from the Association for Learning Technology, for their work on remote laboratories in the School of Engineering at Edinburgh.
The rest of the article will summarise key discussion points:
NTPW viewed through a post humanistic lens
Tim begins by describing the instrumental need that his work is trying to address and explains being motivated by a desire to provide quality education at scale, referring the MIT report on the global state-of-the-art in engineering education which highlights the following challenge:
“How do we deal with this expansion [of student numbers]? How do we still engage students early on with the world of engineering? How do we show them the messiness of engineering, the political and social aspects? … How do we do this beyond the capstone project? This type of education, the type of education we want to have, is expensive. So how do you do this for all students, large cohorts of students, without compromising on everything?” (Graham, 2018).
Although acknowledging the opportunities provided by digital technology, Tim warns us not to fall into the trap of believing that technology will replace humans. Instead, he urges us to understand digital technologies and work out how to weave them into what we’re doing in such a way that is complementary.
He explains that there is emerging evidence that NTPW activities produce as good or better educational outcomes than traditional laboratories alone, suggesting that technology offers not just a replacement for existing practices, but the opportunity for enhancement. He refers to some of his work where he (and co-authors) drew inspiration and insight from critical post-humanism, which explores what happens when non-human actors exert influence in education. Through this lens, teacher-like functionality is seen to complement, rather than compete with, academic staff because technical artefacts do not replace humans but instead have their own value to offer.
Understanding the different approaches
Tim explains that NTPW is an umbrella term to describe digital and online alternatives to traditional practical work. NTPW includes virtual and remote laboratories, augmented and virtual reality, and simulations. Delivery can be online, on demand, on- or off- campus, with automated feedback and evaluation, and available 24/7. Staff are no longer to be present for activities to proceed safely and meaningfully, and physical space is reclaimed in previously under or unused locations that are not suitable for face-to-face interactions. NTPW presents an attractive value proposition due to the reduced space it requires per activity, increased laboratory availability, and attendant environmental sustainability benefits. Types include:
- Simulated laboratories (mathematically-modelled data)
- Virtual laboratories (replay of data pre-recorded from real equipment)
- Asynchronous real laboratories (experiments performed automatically on remote equipment with the results sent back to the student afterwards)
- Synchronous real laboratories (experiments performed interactively on remote equipment with results streamed in real time)
Depending on the approach taken, NTPL offers several potential benefits including: flexible and increased access; access to specialist equipment; personalisation of experiments and reduced academic malpractice; improved health and safety; and immediate feedback.
Deciding which approach to take
Tim provides us with some of the factors we should consider when deciding which approach to take.
Time involved: Tim provides the example of piece of equipment that takes 4 hours to go through an experiment, explaining that if you were to put that online, there’s a lot of waiting around. He also describes a different case in which students come in, they put the wrong reagent in and waste their opportunity to use that machine. In these cases, he suggests a pre-lab exercise that involves the students using a simulated version, as well as a post lab exercise
Space: Tim describes a different case in which there is not enough lab space for large cohorts. In this case you could bring students to a lecture theatre with staff, tutors and demonstrators and allow them to make use of a laptop to control some equipment that resides elsewhere.
He therefore suggests that considerations should include at least the following: time involved, number of students, number of experiments, space, learning outcomes and assessment.
Student experience: Remote vs in person labs
Tim talks to us about some of the things students have provided feedback on with respect to remote labs. For example, during the pandemic they struggled with not being able to talk to one another. He also explains that synchronous laboratories impose technical conditions in order to create an emotionally engaging experience, or the frustration of expecting an instant response but finding delays can lead to negative outcomes such as disengagement. He explains that remote labs can limit the development of psychomotor skills.
An example
Tim describes moving a lab session online during the pandemic. Originally groups of students had a laptop to control some equipment (in this case a weighted disc on top of a direct current motor, an analogue to an elbow joint and a robot) in 290 minute sessions, this equating to about 30 minutes per student. He explained that when they gave students access to a similar sort of exercise, the students on average used ten hours each.
The student journey
Tim describes tensions between security and convenience, saying that student experience is a priority. This has resulted in the development of a booking system which covers a range of different use cases. For example, staff members may give students a link, and that link will either have some pre booked equipment in the case that the session is timetabled, or there can be a link where they can access self-service and book in advance. He describes the use of experiments (for example use of eye gaze cameras) to provide insight into user experience.
In house vs. commercial solutions
Tim explains that Edtech is about trying to sell the easiest to develop product. This can mean that cultural differences crop up in the software used in the UK because it was designed in the US, this sometimes resulting in student complaints about cultural assumptions that were made by the software maker. You are also limited in what you can do with commercial solutions. With respect to in house solutions he explains that academic led projects are typically funded for short amounts of time with the remit to design a fixed set of experiments for a fixed set of courses, this sometimes leading to formation of spin-out companies.
Social acceptance
Tim explains that the technology is coming to a reasonable level of maturity and describes social acceptance as the next major challenge. On boarding involves building an evidence base by evaluating interventions, this involving a combination of data stream analysis and student survey data. He explains that the benefit of a large scale remote laboratory infrastructure is that it allows for the collection of large amounts of quantitative data. He thus claims that there is an opportunity to work together as a community to have an open source approach that allows us to have things that are customised to our local context.
Takeaways
Tim encourages anyone who is interested in developing NTPL to get in touch for a discussion and support in getting up and running
References
Graham, R. (2018). “The global state of the art in engineering education,” New Engineering Education Transformation, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
Further Reading
The following provides a link to work in which Tim describes different types of NTPW
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23752696.2020.1816845
The following provides a link to work whereby Tim makes use of a post-humanist lens.
For more information about student (user) experience you can refer to the following pieces of work
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03064190221081451
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