Expanding the Benefits of Mobile Studio Classrooms

Today's students are computer-savvy, exhibit a diminished attention span, and have tremendous demands upon their time. Educational research has shown that humans retain perhaps 10% of what they hear someone else tell them, but retain as much as 90% of what they learn by doing. Mobile studios with TabLabs can be set-up and removed in minutes, allowing for greater efficiencies in space utilization, scheduling (over a period of 24 hours/day), maintenance & support, enhanced student-teacher engagement and ultimately, improved student learning.

Engineering students are typically running multiple applications while simultaneously using browsers, instant messaging and search engines on their computers. This results in competition for the user's attention and impedes the ability to focus - with the notable exception of the engrossment involved with a computer game. Consequently, the shortened attention spans, lowered tolerance for repetition, and dependence on computers seriously challenges educators to provide information in more dynamic, compelling, thorough, and interactive ways.

As designs have become increasingly complex and electronic in nature, today's products require advanced skills and greater intuition in science, math, engineering and technology. Shortened attention spans hinder students from staying engaged and focused in math and science classrooms, resulting in poorer performance and diminished interest in pursuing technical careers.

Notwithstanding the recent advances in educational technology, we need to incorporate more dynamic, hands-on opportunities to reach and motivate more diverse populations. Today's engineering students don't enter college with the same amount of hands-on experience that prior generations had.

We have observed that by simultaneously stimulating a student's multiple senses, we can improve the student's understanding of the educational concepts - which leads to greater retention and application of the acquired knowledge. In addition, the Mobile Studio has changed the way students make measurements; allowing for a nearly instantaneous comparison between theoretical predictions, virtual simulations and actual hands-on experimental results. Students can again "tinker" with the hardware aspects of engineering and science, providing open-ended opportunities to explore ideas - as prior generations did.

Student access to user-friendly, computer-controlled instrumentation and data analysis techniques offers immediate scaffolding of principles and concepts by obtaining experimental results - from the Mobile Studio hardware & software. Current collaborations (student-student, student-teacher) in classes are typically limited to using static 2D data (e.g. on paper) and constrained problems. This project implements the utilization of dynamic data, graphical collaboration techniques, and in-class design scenarios to further engage students. For example, team results from the development of a circuit project are presented and distributed via the mobile audio/video system.

With the advent of the Mobile Studio's Tablet PC-based lab (TabLab), many instrumentation-based course offerings can now be held in normal classrooms rather than in specially outfitted studio facilities. In addition, students can perform hands-on experiments outside of the classroom anywhere/anytime, thus facilitating new opportunities for them to "tinker" and gain valuable insight through practical experience. Ultimately, we can foster scaffolding and improve the retention of information using interactive multimedia and computer based hardware, since users can guide themselves through materials and tinker at their own pace and level.

The Mobile Studio provides students with the equipment to grasp the fundamental concepts associated with engineering education by acquiring, utilizing and controlling real world phenomena (e.g. voltage, current, resistance, position, temperature, intensity, etc.); moving objects to precise locations; and developing systems to monitor, process & manipulate electrical signals and events.

The project's outcomes will enable students to take measurements (using a scope, function generator, etc.) and test prototype designs from anywhere at anytime.

The assessment of the pilot efforts included a review of the educational technology, interviews with faculty, classroom observations, student evaluation surveys/interviews, and conventional student performance metrics (course work, HW, exams, etc.). Student performance on design-oriented problems by those using the Mobile Studio's TabLab instrumentation was significantly better than the group that did not participate in the Mobile Studio sessions - in contrast with analysis-oriented problems, in which similar results were achieved by both groups. The Mobile Studio allowed faculty to better present course concepts and foster student interactivity & collaboration.

One Year Ago - Even with the more engaging studio environments, student learning is still impeded by space constraints, insufficient time for laboratory activities (particularly to do the in-depth probing that leads to an intuitive feel for system design), and poorly designed equipment that takes up a great deal of space - and can't be brought home for individual study. Lab-equipped classrooms are both in high demand and in extremely short supply.

Today - Configuring a studio facility typically requires a large equipment allocation/expense and a specific space utilization plan. Renovation of existing facilities is currently cost-prohibitive for many schools, thus limiting the potential to leverage the advantages of the studio format. The hardware is now in use at Rensselaer and Howard - providing studio classrooms for curricula that used to offer courses in lecture only formats; currently involving Physics, Electronic Arts, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Rensselaer's core engineering program.

One Year From Now - We will use the HP advanced mobile technologies to produce a new generation of classrooms that are more adaptive and less reliant on the construction of large facilities, allowing studio pedagogy to be readily deployed at a dramatically reduced cost. We will infuse the TabLab technology and pedagogy into the Physics and ECSE departments' large enrollment courses and expand the utilization of mobile studio classrooms campus-wide. Ultimately, we will develop the Mobile Studio practices and the TabLab technology into a model that can be readily adopted by home-schooling providers, community colleges, universities, and K-12 institutions - to significantly impact student learning on a national scale.

The prototype TabLab hardware/software educational technology and the Mobile Studio pedagogy was developed during summer 04. In order to investigate the extension of the pedagogy & educational technology to a different/diverse campus, two Mobile Studio sessions were also conducted at both Rensselaer and Howard University in December 04 and in April 05. Since Howard doesn't currently have studio facilities, the sessions offered their students a "hands-on" experience - in contrast with what had typically been purely "paper & pencil" projects. The student response from the pilots has been tremendous - uniformly generating requests for more Mobile Studio activities. Additionally, students are now able to use the TabLab systems to work on design projects outside of class (e.g. in the dorm).

Additional outreach activities were carried out with 4th grade science teachers from the Niskayuna School District (@Craig Elementary School). Tablet PCs were used to explore interactive modules (developed by Rensselaer's Academy of Electronic Media) with the Mobile Studio hardware/software to aid the students' understanding of electrical connectivity, resistance and circuit testing. A subset of the Mobile Studio Tablet PCs was also used in an interactive session at Lansingburg High School (Troy, NY), which incorporated hands-on activities to demonstrate the impact that electronics had on music.

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This project is funded in part by a 2004 & 2005 (Extension) HP Technology for Teaching grant.

The Mobile Studio project has gained campus-wide attention and broad national interest as a result of numerous campus visitations, the NSF Grantees Conference (February 05), ASEE and FIE 05 workshops, poster sessions, and demonstrations. The mobile studio classroom was demonstrated at PKAL's national meeting (September 04) and at NASA's Advances in Learning Technologies conference (March 05).

A hands-on panel was conducted at the annual ASEE conference (June 05, Portland, OR). As a result of an invited plenary presentation at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Assoc. (ECEDHA) meeting (March 05) many community colleges and universities around the country have expressed a keen interest in adopting the Mobile Studio pedagogy.

A Rensselaer alumnus who is a Fellow at Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) was informed about the Mobile Studio as a result of an article that was published in our Winter 2004 Alumni Magazine and has since provided both personal and ADI corporate support for the project. These funds have helped to cover the fabrication of the TabLab printed circuit cards, components and student compensation.

As a wonderful testament to the projects achievements, Jason Coutermarsh (the undergraduate student developing the instrumentation board hardware) won first prize at Rensselaer's 2005 Undergraduate Education/Research Project Competition.